


Fallen

by Kayasurin



Series: Though Heaven May Fall [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: All relationships are background, Attempted Rape, But it's shown, Dark!Jack, Drugging, Dubious Consent, F/M, For Want of a Nail, I'm so sorry, Jack looks horrible, M/M, Making it all my idea, Not kink meme prompted, Not of main characters, Pitch is a jerk, Sinterklauss being Santa being Nick, Sinterklauss is mentioned, The Unseleighe Sidhe, There is death, To fight monsters, Torture, You have to become a monster, heed the warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-18
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-08 19:46:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/765293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayasurin/pseuds/Kayasurin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack didn't forget anything. He lost everything.</p><p>It set him down a different path than the one the Moon had intended. A darker, more violent one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waking

_It's the bitter taste of losing everything_  
 _That I've held so dear_  
-Sarah McLachlan, "Fallen"

* * *

It was cold, and dark. Jack clawed at the ice overhead, until it cracked and he could shove his way out. The water was so _cold_. He shivered, and crawled away from the broken ice. His hand came down on his shepherd's crook, and he held tight. The wood was frosted over. How long had he been under the ice, anyways? Not long enough to drown, surely; he was still alive. Gasping for breath, heart pounding, limbs shaking from his struggles. Definitely alive.

Where was Emma? He'd saved her. Gotten her away from the cracking ice, back to safety.

She must have run for help. Jack looked up, and frowned at the night sky, the full moon. They'd gone skating in the _morning_. And it'd been a quarter moon only the night before.

_Jack Frost..._

What? What was that voice? Silvery, barely louder than a whisper... Jack looked around, and then, for some reason, back up at the moon. "What?"

_Jack Frost..._

He braced himself on the ice with his staff- and frost immediately spread across the surface, a rush of curling ice fronds. Jack gasped, and turned in place. What, but he, had he? He looked down at his staff, and gaped at the frost covering the wood. Carefully, he tapped the crook of his staff against the nearest tree trunk, and silver ice patterns covered the rough bark.

"I did that?" he asked, and stepped back. His bare feet slipped, and he fell, and this was going to _hurt_ -

Something snatched him up and dropped him in a tree.

"What the..." The wind rustled the branches, and Jack grinned despite himself. "Wind?"

The wind blew stronger, until his branch swayed with the force of it. It wasn't a tiny little branch, either. Alright. So, he had fallen into the lake, and come back out, and he'd flown on the wind, he must have... and there was something about the ice, the frost, and he hadn't noticed but however cold he'd been when he'd clawed his way out of the ice, he was completely dry.

Something strange was going on. No matter; he had to see his family, tell them it was alright, he was fine. He'd been trapped under the ice, and he'd somehow _changed_ , but everything was okay.

"Wind!" he called, and felt it grab hold of his limbs, his clothing. "Take me home!"

Then he turned his attention towards his village, Chambers. Named after the first settler to settle down on the bank of the lake. His Pa was the old founder's second cousin or something; related, somehow.

Jack shook his head, and flew- _flew_! He was actually flying! He'd dreamed of doing this for so long, and now he _was_ \- over the forest. There was something wrong with this, he knew it, but he'd think about it after he'd reassured his parents, and Emma.

He landed on the outskirts of the village. There were several people there- but they didn't seem to see him. They didn't even glance his way.

"Hey," he called, and stepped in front of one woman. He thought he recognized her- she looked like Genevieve's mother, only younger- but she walked right through him.

She _walked right through him_.

It hurt, like that first breath of icy water- No.

Jack staggered to the side, and this time a young boy went through him. Just, as if he wasn't there. A ghost.

A ghost...

"Oh no," he breathed, and then turned and ran for his home.

He went through several more people on the way, but he didn't care, because he had to get home. Jack all but flew down the street- and he could have flown now, he could have, but he had to run, had to feel the packed earth beneath his feet and no, this was wrong, this was all wrong, _his village wasn't supposed to look like this_.

It was too big, there were too many people, the houses didn't look right. Someone had whitewashed here, and redone the shingles there, and there were people he almost recognized in the street, finishing up their business for the day now that work was done and the sun was setting and no one wasted their candles just to _talk_. The full moon let them stretch things out a bit, gave a little light, but Jack knew that people didn't put off sleep for no good reason. Not even in winter, when the work eased up a bit.

He reached his home, and stopped suddenly. What if they weren't there? What if...?

Slowly, he edged closer to his home. It, the back door, it looked out over the lake where he'd taken Emma skating. There was a good sized meadow, and he could have gone that way, but no, he'd gone through the village. Why had he done that?

Because, he remembered. He always came home by the front door. Wiped his feet on the rag rug just inside, or his boots if he wore them. There was only the one rug yet, Ma not having had the time or the rags to make a second, so the family always came in through the front to keep from making a mess on the floor.

He reached for the latch, and then stopped himself. No. He'd look through the window first.

He did, and nearly fell back. It was Emma, but she was... older. Looked a little worn, too. If he had a guess, she was as old as he was. Maybe a year older. Sixteen instead of fifteen. Old enough to start thinking about engagements, marriage, a family of her own.

Emma looked out the window, and _didn't see him_.

Jack clutched his staff so tight the wood bit into his palms, his fingertips. He breathed hard, as if that would keep the tears from falling, or slow his pounding heart. It wouldn't of course. All it did was make him sound like the blacksmith's bellows, only it seemed no one could hear him either, and oh, God, no. Why? Why was he here, like this, a ghost? Able to see but not be seen, not able to touch his own family, not able to talk to them. Why?

He shook it off, and moved to the other window. He looked in.

Ma was in her rocker, the shawl over her lap doing nothing to hide or disguise the bulge of her stomach. She smiled, a little melancholy. Jack turned his head a little, the better to hear through the precious glass.

"Father," she said, and Jack looked over to the dining table. Pa was there, working on a bit of leather harness for the mule.

"Yes?" he asked, and looked up from his work.

"If we have a boy. I'd like to name him after Jackson."

Jack noticed Emma turn around at that. "We should," she said. "Jack... I think he'd like that."

Like that? He didn't know what to think about it. But... Yes. The idea of a brother, with his name... It made the ache in his heart ease just a little.

Maybe this was why he was here. To see how his family was doing, to know that they weren't grieving for him still. It looked like it had been ten years, Emma sixteen instead of six, another baby on the way. And they were still thinking of him.

"I reckon we're decided then," Pa said, and looked down at his harness. "Way things are going, the new baby will be just like... Just like Jackson."

"Hopefully he won't need to be as brave," Emma said, and looked out the window again.

As brave...? Oh. She'd meant... Jack swallowed, and pressed his hand against the glass. Frost covered it entirely, and he scraped it clear with his fist.

There wasn't much more to watch. Pa finished his work on the harness, and he helped Ma out of her rocker and they went to bed. Emma blew out the candle, and went into a new room, a tiny portioning of space no doubt set up for a young woman to have her privacy.

Jack flew up to the roof, and then just sat on the cold shingles, and watched his silent village.

He was dead.

Several of the wooden shingles cracked from the cold, and he pulled his hands away. He hadn't meant to do that. He- it'd been a reaction to his emotions. He'd... and then the wood he'd touched had gotten so cold, too cold, and now Pa would have to fix the roof, or pay a neighbor to do it. Jack doubted there was any extra money now than when he'd been alive, so Pa would do it. He'd climb up onto the roof, despite his fear of heights, and he'd take out the broken singles and put in the new, and he'd be shaking and sweating the entire time.

There were few people braver than Jack's Pa, but like Pa always said. "Bravery isn't being unafraid. It's being scared and doing what needs done anyways."

Like on the lake. Jack breathed deep through his nose. He'd been scared, but Emma had been in danger, his baby sister, and he'd _had_ to save her. The danger to himself, he hadn't actually thought about it, but he supposed the possibility had always been there in the back of his mind. And now, now he was back, in a way. No one could see him. No one could touch him. No one could hear him.

But he could see his family, and hear them, and there had to be a reason God would bring him back. Perhaps... Perhaps there was one last thing he'd have to do for the family, or something that would give him closure, and then he could go on to Heaven.

As the days turned to weeks, and the season changed from winter to spring, Jack learnt a few things about his new state. He felt the cold, but it didn't hurt him; as the weather warmed, he learnt that, again, he could feel the warmth, but it never dispelled the chill in his fingers or toes. He needed to eat and sleep, but not as much as when he'd been alive. It was perfectly alright to go three days without sleep, though if he tried to push it to four he'd generally nod off in the middle of the day.

Eating was more problematic. He wouldn't steal from his neighbors and family, he _wouldn't_. Oh, when he'd been younger he'd snitch a berry pocket here or a tart there, especially if he saw them cooling on a windowsill. All the children had done it, harmless theft that hurt no one and didn't take food from the mouths of the hungry. As he'd grown, he'd found a greater satisfaction in doing work and getting rewarded for it with the rare sweets.

Now, though- well, he got hungry his second day out of the lake. It was horrible, like the worst hunger pains ever. It got to the point that pig slop looked almost appetizing, but it was that which sent him stumbling into the forest, where he learnt of the food available to him.

He watched the deer, the rabbits, the squirrels when they were awake and the jays and nuthatches and chickadees. He learnt to dig the old acorns and pine-nuts from under the snow, which trees had edible inner bark- though he found such stuff bitter, he ate it anyways. Food was food. Jack remembered too that cattail roots were edible, so he returned to the lake, his- his grave- and ate a bellyful of the stuff.

It never seemed like enough, but he had faith that, come spring, there'd be more to eat. There'd be the quail eggs, and the young greens- fiddlehead ferns and wild onions, the few mushrooms Jack knew to be safe to eat, and more, he knew there would be a lot more- and who knew. Perhaps he could snitch the occasional berry tart, just like old times.

Ma's pregnancy progressed. Jack watched, grinned when the neighbor women- Mercy and Charity, Agnes who'd been Ma's friend since they'd come over on the boat together, Eva and Karina- all got together with Ma to do the sewing and chat and congratulate her on her pregnancy.

That was _his_ baby brother or sister growing in Ma's stomach like that. He did wish, now and then, that he was still alive, so he could be a proper brother. But he wouldn't have wanted to be in Heaven and miss this. He could wait.

Winter ended, and Jack found himself growing- not tired, exactly- but lethargic. He didn't _have_ to sleep more often, but he did anyways. At least he didn't have to eat any more than he already did, though as the snow melted he was able to supplement his diet.

He couldn't bring himself to make a fire, though, so cooking food was out. Jack set aside all hope of catching rabbits, quail, or fish and making himself a fine dinner that way. He'd never turned his nose up at vegetables, not even when it looked like he'd be eating nothing but for the next bit. He also, regretfully, gave up the thought of eating quail eggs; he never had been able to stand _raw_ eggs, not since he'd eaten a raw chicken egg on a dare and gotten sick after.

Emma was courting, or being courted, it was hard to tell for sure. Jack thought Ewan Baker was an alright man; Emma could do much better, but she seemed to like him fine. Certainly he was respectful to her, and to the other folks in the village, and treated his animals kindly. Pa was thinking of the possible match, Jack could tell.

It was hard to accept that his baby sister was thinking about romance, but, well, there it was. Jack had missed out on ten years of her growing up, so it came as a shock every time he realized she wasn't a little girl anymore.

Ma had her new baby in late spring. Jack stayed outside the house with Pa and Uncle Gerald, until the midwife came out and announced that the Overlands had a new boy in the family.

A brother. A baby brother. Jack grinned ear to ear, and hugged himself in delight.

It wasn't long after that- perhaps a week at most- before he broke his one and only rule so far. Jack leg himself into the house after everyone had gone to bed, and drifted on silent feet over to the cradle his little brother, Young Jack, slept in. The cradle was one his Pa had made for Jack the elder, so many years ago... Twenty-five years now it'd be, Jack thought.

He shook it off, and peered at his brother. Young Jack was a scrap of red-faced, sleeping humanity. He had a squished look, like all the other newborns Jack had seen before, but he was a handsome fellow for it all.

"Hello," Jack whispered, and very deliberately clasped his cold hands behind his back. "I'm your older brother, Jack- huh."

He tilted his head. He was Jackson Overland, but so was his new brother. That'd get confusing.

What had that voice called him, when he'd come out of the ice? Jack Frost? Yes, that'd do. "I'm your older brother," he repeated, "Jack Frost. And don't you worry a thing, Young Jack. I'm going to watch over you. You'll be safe as anything with me about."

Young Jack didn't seem to react, but that was fine. Jack let himself back out of the house, and hopped up to the roof, where he'd left his staff. He looked up at the moon, and frowned at the- surely the light wasn't _sullen_ , was it?

No, it wasn't. He was personifying an object, like giving a rock an opinion or a tree a voice. He thought, briefly, of the Wind- but no, the Wind was a person, albeit one without a body or voice. Perhaps another ghost, like him. Perhaps one day, he'd be a wind too.

He'd rather go to Heaven.

Jack shook his head, and leapt up into the air. The Wind caught him, and carried him up, high into the sky, until it felt like he was suspended between Heaven and Earth.

"I am Jack Frost!" he called, and laughed. "And God as my witness, I'll protect my brother until the end of my days!"

The Wind spun him around like a top, her version of laughter, and threw him up even higher.

Jack laughed, and laughed, as his ascent slowed and then stopped. For a moment he hung, weightless, and then he tilted, head coming down and he looked 'up' at the ground.

And fell.


	2. Losing

"Another fine winter," Jack told Pa. Not that the old man could hear him. "You're welcome."

Pa just stomped through the thin snow and last season's long, wild grasses, towards the village.

Jack flitted alongside him. If not for the part where he was a ghost, it was almost exactly like old times, tending the sheep with Pa. Those days had been good ones, when Pa and him would sit and watch the flock, maybe work on some wood carving while the beasts grazed. Occasionally, they would talk, but generally they spent the days in silence. Any other time, Jack would chatter to fill the silence, laugh and joke with his friends, or even just talk to himself. But with Pa, he could let himself be quiet.

Today had been a day like before. Young Jack wasn't old enough to go out with Pa, only five now. Jack had kept Pa company, so to speak, and relaxed.

When he'd woken up five years ago, he never would have imagined what he'd be doing. Jack had discovered, the year after he'd awoken, that he could, sort of, _steer_ winter. The howling winds tamed to his voice, the snow fell gently at his urging. He couldn't make it stop all together, but then, he didn't want to either. He could feel the land, the trees and the animals, and by autumn could feel how badly winter was needed. The trees needed their sleep, and sad as it was, the animals needed thinning. Better that their deaths fed the predators and the humans, than their starving because there were too many plant eaters and not enough plants.

Too, the humans needed the break that winter gave them. It was a time to rest, recuperate, to get ready for the coming eight months of work that was plowing and planting, tending and harvest. The very old tended to pass away in winter, and that was sad, but at least in winter the family was in and around them, and had the time to mourn before spring.

Jack had, since that first discovery, done what he could to gentle the winters. There was always at least one big storm he couldn't slow or tame, but for the most part things were easy. At least part of it was self interest; if he buried the wild food, _he_ wouldn't eat. The villagers had what they'd stored away.

But mostly, it was just- he didn't want to see his friends and family miserable. There wasn't much he could do for them, but this? Yes, this he could do. And would.

He'd even started spreading his efforts out a bit. There were several villages within a few days of Chambers, and there was no reason to shun them when making things easy for his people.

Emma was married now, Emma Baker. Jack looked in on her, now and then, but she ran the village's mill and bakery well enough. She always, he noticed, made extra berry pockets and sweet tarts, and seemed to expect some amount of theft. Jack never felt guilty filching a sweetie from her for that reason. He was only one of dozens of children taking advantage of her generosity.

That was the thing, Jack thought, and sighed. He was still fifteen. It'd been five years, added to the ten he'd apparently missed out on, so he should have been thirty now. Maybe thirty-one, he wasn't too sure. Instead, he was still waiting to grow into his hands, feet, and voice. It hadn't happened. He was starting to think it never would.

He had to wonder, too, when he'd go on to Heaven. Unless- was he supposed to be Young Jack's guardian angel? The boy certainly could use one, though he wasn't quite the wild hellion Jack remembered being. Of course, Young Jack was only five, and would likely get into just as much trouble as Jack the Elder had.

That'd be fun. He couldn't touch people, but things? Yes, he could touch things, and animals saw him. He could protect Young Jack to the best of his ability, see that he never got into too much trouble... and never went through thin ice on the lake. A fine thought.

He all but skipped after Pa to the village. Then he caught sight of Ewan Baker's horse hitched in front of the house, and ran ahead. He still half-expected to hear Pa holler at him to slow down, but he didn't.

Pa didn't see him.

Jack slowed, and peered in through the window. Ewan and Emma were sitting at the kitchen table with Ma. He didn't see Young Jack- but maybe the boy was out with his friends, being watched by one of the neighbors while they played.

He wanted to find Young Jack- but he wanted to know what Emma and Ewan were here for, too. In the end, he decided to stay and listen in. Young Jack couldn't get into any trouble in the village.

Pa entered through the front door, and Jack thought of ducking inside, but the door was closed before he made up his mind. He settled down at the window, and scraped some frost off the lower pane.

"'Lo, Ewan. Emma, you look fine today." Pa stooped down and kissed Emma on the cheek, then sat down next to Ma. "What's the honor of your visit?"

"Father," Ma said. "Don't be so-"

"It's alright, Ma," Emma said, and laughed. She reached over and clasped Ewan's hand tight. "We're too excited for small talk, anyways."

"Well, what is it then?" Ma asked, and leaned forward.

Emma and Ewan looked at each other, and grinned, bright and happy and a little nervous. "I'm pregnant," Emma said. "Alison says I'll be due in seven months."

Pregnant! Jack recoiled from the window, then laughed and shot up into the sky. Pregnant! His little sister was going to have a baby!

He laughed, and laughed, and danced on the back of the wind. He was going to be an uncle! This was wonderful!

* * *

"I'm so sorry," the midwife said. "There was just too much blood."

Ewan closed his eyes, and hunched over, like the words were a physical blow. "And the baby?"

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, Ewan."

Jack left then. He had to, he could feel the ice curling around his fingertips and-

He had to go.

He made it to his lake, floated over the water and screamed. And screamed, and screamed.

Emma. Emma was dead. Emma and the baby were both dead.

His sister, his little sister, it wasn't right. It wasn't right!

Jack howled his grief to the stars and the moon, pounded his fists against the ice on the lake. The wind swirled around him, tore at his clothes and his hair and he deserved it, deserved worse, because his sister was dead.

" _Why_?"

* * *

Young Jack shuffled his feet, and looked up at Ma from under his hair. Jack hovered, invisible, at his shoulder.

"I could go look for some berries, or...?" Young Jack said. He bit his lip. "I know what's poisonous, I wouldn't bring anything bad home."

Ma stopped kneading the bread, and lowered her head. "I know you wouldn't," she said. "I just don't want you to go off alone."

"He's not alone," Jack said. "I'm with him. I'm always with him."

Young Jack looked down at his feet. "I wouldn't go far. Just to the edge of the trees."

Which made it unlikely Young Jack would find anything, the sheep and every enterprising child having combed through the fields and pasture already.

But Jack could see it in the boy, the need to go out and do something. It'd only been a month since Emma had passed, but you could only grieve for so long. Not that Young Jack didn't miss his sister, or didn't still love her, but the boy was convinced she'd gone to Heaven.

Jack wasn't so sure. _He_ hadn't gone... but maybe he just wasn't worthy. Emma, there weren't many people better than Emma, and most of them were saints.

He hadn't even been able to say goodbye.

"Alright," Ma said, and her smile was tired. "Just to the edge of the trees, Jack. No further."

"I'll remember," Young Jack said.

Behind him, Jack nodded. "I'll watch him," he promised. "You've nothing to worry about."

He followed Young Jack out of the house, and floated after the boy. Young Jack was barefoot, to save the leather soles of his shoes for when the weather turned. Jack remembered doing the same, at that age- heck, he'd done the same all his life, and everyone he knew did, too, with a few exceptions for those as worked with dangerous machinery. Losing toes hurt.

The boy headed to the edge of the trees straight off. Jack understood the thought process; the fields and pasture would be picked over, but maybe along the tree line there'd still be something. Berries of one kind or another, even blackberries, would make a nice treat for dessert. There'd be scratches and some blood to pay, but Jack had always felt it worth the price for the treat. Young Jack, he'd noticed, seemed to feel the same way.

Young Jack trotted sturdily along, six years old now and more than capable of running three times around the village without getting winded or slowing. He was a bit more serious than Jack had been at that age, but he had reason.

It was autumn, and Jack would have to bring the first frost soon. The crops needed it to ripen that last little bit, and the villagers needed it so they'd know it was time. The frost came without him- he'd tested that- but it was better when he was the one guiding it.

And then it would be winter. Jack couldn't wait. This year, he thought, this year there would be storms. He needed to grieve. He needed to let his rage and sorrow out, and how better than into the snow? He'd have to be careful with it, but it'd been six good winters now. The land was overdue for a harder one.

Yes, he thought. Let the weight of ice and snow prune the weaker branches from the trees while the sap didn't flow and insects all slept. A harsh kindness, but better in winter than when a wound in the bark could let in the parasites and potentially kill the tree.

Young Jack peered at the underbrush right at the edge of the forest. It was an interesting place, Jack thought. All the sunlight let the saplings and bushes, a riot of flowers and countless vines, grow wild the way they couldn't deeper in the forest, where the adult trees blocked out most direct light. The nearby pasture, though, meant that the sheep, few milch cows, and the plow horses when they weren't hitched up or in the barn, grazed over anything really small.

Jack followed the boy through the tangles, and reached out to pull thorn covered vines away without the boy noticing. He had it easier, in a way. He had more experience moving through this part of the forest, both from his own lifetime explorations, and his current afterlife scrounging for food. This really was one of the better areas to find it.

"Not those," he warned, when he saw the boy reaching for bright red berries. "Those are poisonous."

Young Jack hesitated, as though he'd heard, and then moved on. He clutched his basket with both hands, and then stumbled over an upraised tree root.

Jack sighed, and shook his head. He didn't remember that age very well, but he was pretty sure he hadn't been as clumsy.

Not that Young Jack being clumsy was a bad thing. Amusing, certainly.

He smiled, and followed his little brother, and chuckled when the boy stumbled over a rabbit trail and breathed a sigh of relief.

"You're forgetting the rabbits are smaller than you are," he told the boy. Still, the faint track was easier going than the dense thicket had been.

Young Jack found a blackberry patch, the lower branches already stripped clean of the berries. Inside the thicket, though, there were still plenty of the tart, juicy berries, and Young Jack was small enough to squirm under the branches to the middle.

Jack floated up above the thicket, and picked berries off the top branches. Birds had already gotten there before him, but there was more than enough to fill his stomach. He had to eat, but not as much as when he was alive. If he _had_ needed that much food... He might well have died a second time, from starvation.

It wasn't fair, but then, his entire situation wasn't fair.

He froze a handful of berries, and then threw them out into the woods. Young Jack crawled out from the blackberry thicket not long after, basket almost full and hands and mouth sticky purple with juice.

The boy hummed to himself, and walked with exaggerated care back down the rabbit path. He looked back and forth, clearly enjoying his surroundings and the warm, autumn afternoon. His good cheer lifted Jack's spirits, and he shook off his darker mood with only a little effort.

"Oh!" Young Jack said, and put down his basket. Jack looked around, and raised his eyebrows.

"Milk-vetch?" he said, just as the boy said "peas! Wild peas!"

Well, close enough. Jack chuckled as the boy began stripping the ripe pods from the plants, and even picked some and tossed them in the basket when the boy wasn't looking. He grinned when he realized that for every handful Young Jack put in the basket, he ate two more.

Only when the basket was completely full did the boy stop. He hoisted the basket- Jack, unseen, steadied it with a quick hand when it looked like it'd be too heavy for Young Jack to lift- and then started walking again.

Jack escorted him all the way back to the front door of their home, before lifting up and flying high on the wind. He felt good, right now, and the sun was setting. Maybe he should get started on the first frosts of the year.

When he returned to the village the next morning, and checked in on Young Jack, the boy looked... ill. Tired. So did Ma and Pa. It must have been a bad day, Jack thought, and bit his lower lip. He considered the matter, and then concentrated. Three snowflakes, glowing faintly blue, formed at his fingertips. He blew on them, and one touched Ma on her forehead, Pa on his nose, and Young Jack on the cheek.

Good thing Ma had the window open for the fresh air, though.

The snowflakes weren't seen, but they burst and sparkled when they touched skin. After a moment, the three of them started to smile faintly.

He couldn't _force_ people happy, but he could sort of nudge them that way. Jack was rather proud of himself for helping his family this way.

Jack pulled away from the window, and hovered level with the roof when Pa and Young Jack stepped outside. He watched Pa head towards the sheep field, and Young Jack head down the street, no doubt to meet up with his friends to play.

Then Young Jack collapsed, and Ma started screaming as she ran for him.

* * *

Jack stood in the graveyard. The wind was cold, as was only fitting.

There were four new graves, one after the other. Emma, Young Jack, Ma and Pa. They'd all died in a single year, Emma giving birth, Young Jack... No one knew, not for certain. Bad humors in his blood, maybe, or he'd eaten something that'd turned out bad for him. It was on Jack's head, though; he should have done something to stop Young Jack from getting sick. It might have been the milk-vetch, he didn't know.

Ma had gotten sick that winter, and never recovered. Pa had followed her, not so much ill as too tired to go on.

The villagers, his neighbors, had had just enough time to bury them before the storms had hit.

Now Chambers was empty. Not that anyone had died while Jack raged and screamed and cried. But houses had been destroyed, by the wind and the weight of the ice and hailstones that had smashed the buildings and the fields and shattered windows and tore through wood planks with ease.

He'd come to out of his grief to find the village destroyed, the people gone.

It'd been enough to set up another round of storms.

"I failed you," he said, his voice rough and low. He knelt and touched Ma's gravestone. "I'm so sorry. I should've done better."

Jack stood up again, and looked up at the sky. The moon was full, as it'd been when he'd woken, and he thought the light was sad.

"I can't stay here," he said, and looked around. "I- I need to travel." Needed to get away from this place where he'd failed his family, his village. Needed to get away from the decaying corpse of Chambers.

Where could he go?

Anywhere, he decided, and tightened his hold on his staff. Anywhere would be better then here.

"Wind," he called, and closed his eyes. "Take me- away. I don't care, but far from here."

The wind ruffled his hair, and then lifted him up into the sky, and away from Chambers, and his family.

If he cried, there was no one to see it. No one but the moon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A point was brought up in the previous chapter about a) marrying ages in the colonial times and b) Ma Overland's age for the pregnancy. While the usual (female) age for people to get married in those times could be as young as thirteen, that didn't necessarily mean EVERYONE got married at thirteen. Depending on the parents, the husband-to-be, and the bride-to-be's physical maturity, the marrying age could vary. It's not entirely unreasonable that Emma got married later in life, as long as it was before the age of eighteen. At that point, she'd be an old maid and doomed to spinsterhood. As for Ma Overland... if she got married early, say at Emma's age of sixteen, and had Jack when she was seventeen- twenty-three more years and she'd be thirty-nine. As my grandmother got married at 43 and followed that with two children three years apart, it's possible. And in that time period, there wasn't much by way of birth control. It went against the religion.
> 
> Milk-Vetch. It's a kind of pea, and the name covers a whole range of plants that can go from 'good eats' to 'puke up your stomach- possibly literally'. Timber milk-vetch, as a specific example, can kill within a few hours of injestion. North American milk-vetch- well, the Native Americans ate the roots in small quantities as a FAMINE FOOD. Yeah. It was the stuff you ate if you had no other choice. Very carefully.


	3. Meeting

They called it Greenland, an ironic name. Most of the island was buried under a sheet of ice, leaving only a narrow strip of land around the rim free to live on. They farmed, somehow, fished, and eked out a living, these Danes.

Greenland, bound of ice and snow.

It was a cold place, even in summer, with the wind off the ice sheets and in from the ocean. Beautiful, if you could find beauty in a place scraped to bare rock and thin soil.

Jack drew the cold to him, wrapped it around his shoulders like a cloak. Fifty years of wandering and his pain was still fresh, as though he'd only lost them yesterday. His family, the reason- he'd assumed- why he hadn't gone on to Heaven. Only they were gone, and he was still here, and it was a wound that never stopped bleeding.

There were days when he pressed a hand against the pain in his chest, and was surprised there wasn't blood dripping from his fingers after.

Glaciers were good. When there was ice and snow, he could almost forget, go numb, stop hurting.

Almost.

No one ever saw him. Most of the time, he thought, that was a good thing. Some days he remembered to take care of his appearance. Generally, he didn't. His hair was long, now, and even tangled into knots brushed his shoulders. Ma would have been appalled, right before sheering him like a sheep. His hair was the right color for it.

His nails tended to chip and tear before they got long enough to worry about, but it meant they were perpetually ragged and uneven. Dirt collected underneath, so the tips of his fingers were always black, as though frostbitten. Maybe they were, even, though he couldn't feel any difference.

His clothes... His pants had survived the worst of it, though all his clambering about on rocks and trees had torn up the hems pretty good. He'd stolen some twine to bind up the ragged legs. He'd felt bad about it, but hadn't returned what he'd taken.

His shirt was a dead loss, and he continued wearing it only because he wasn't about to replace it. That'd mean stealing, and that wasn't something he'd do again. The twine had been bad, but it was only twine. Clothing would be just as bad as taking food.

His cape, at least, was fine. Worn, a bit ragged on the edges, but solid still. If he needed to keep warm, it'd still be doing its job.

Jack laughed at the turn of his thoughts. The sound was harsh, as harsh as the land he watched. Keep warm? Him? Very funny...

"Velkommen, rejsende. Hvilken sorg har du bringer til mit hjem?"

Jack spun, shepherd's crook whipping up at the ready, and hesitated. There was a man, as bare of foot as he and leaning on a staff rather like Jack's, only it was completely straight, the top foot of it split in two with a white, semi-translucent stone wedged into the crack. His hair was white, his eyes were blue, and he wore clothing as similar to Jack's as staff to staff, though in better repair.

"I have no idea what you just said," Jack murmured. The man couldn't be talking to him, could he?

The man smiled, eyes glittering. "Ah, English. I said 'welcome, traveler. What sorrow do you bring to my home?' The translation suffices?"

Jack's hands trembled. "You can see me."

"Ah?" The stranger's eyebrows went up. "Yes. Are you... You are _very_ new, aren't you?"

New? Perhaps Jack's confusion showed, because the stranger sighed, and rolled his eyes. "Moon, hefur þú mikið að svara fyrir. Come, traveler, we will have speech and food. Jeg anser meg gjestfrihet en hellig oppgave, satt på meg ved All Fader selv."

Jack opened his mouth to answer, frowned, and pointed his staff at the man again. "What languages were those?"

"Danish, first, then Icelandic, and Norwegian. Not quite Norse, sad to say, any of them, but close enough for me. For now." The man shrugged, and yoked his staff across his shoulders. "Perhaps an introduction, first? Mein Name ist Jokul Frosti."

"I understood that!" Jack bounced on his toes, and laughed again. It was slightly better than his first go at it, but not by much. "Hallo! Mein Name ist Jack Frost-Es ist sehr gut ist, Sie zu treffen!"

"German!" Jokul Frosti cackled, and spread his hands. "A common language. English, I can speak it, but _why_?"

Jack shrugged in response. "Perhaps," he said, his parents' language coming easier, "we can continue with German?"

"I will try to remember. Come. Food, and drink, and speech. All things you hunger for, I suspect."

Jokul Frosti's home was an ice cave in the glacier, but it was surprisingly comfortable. Wooden furniture, old furs to provide cushioning, even a small, boxy thing almost like a stove.

"The Japanese call it a _hibachi_ ," Jokul said, and added a few sticks of dried wood. Carefully. Jack had noticed that, while the heat didn't bother him any more than it had when he'd been alive, fire was twice as harmful and four times as painful. The few times he'd gotten burns had been agony. Apparently, Jokul was the same way as Jack. "Useful- everything here I can pack up and move if I want, or make new, and I do like cooked food."

"Bread?" Jack asked, mouth watering.

"Let me introduce you to unleavened barley bread," Jokul said.

It was cold, just this side of stale, and some of the best food Jack had ever tasted. Each loaf was the size of his palm and about as thick; Jokul gave him ten of them, spread with a thick paste made of "berries, nuts, and some other things you don't want to know about, all pounded together and cooked until you can spread it". Jack tried to protest, there was so much, but the other man wouldn't hear of it.

"You are a guest in my home. You are _hungry_. Shorting you would shame me before the gods. Eat! Eat, and I will talk." Jokul swiped at his hair, which had been done up in the most fascinating arrangement Jack had ever seen, and lounged beside the _hibachi_.

If Jack asked nicely, maybe Jokul would help him with his hair; make it look like Jokul's. Jokul had shaved the sides of his head, leaving only a thick plait along the middle of his skull and down his neck, braided and wrapped with leather thongs that appeared black against his white hair, but were probably only a little darker in color than Jack's pants. It was a style nothing at all like what Jack had seen in his village, or even among the Danes of Greenland. The closest comparison he could make were some of the hairstyles of the Indians that occasionally fought with Britain's Colonies.

"So," Jokul said, and ran a hand over his hair again. "So. I will speak, and if I am right, simply stay silent. If I am wrong, say so and I will correct my guesses. You cannot be seen, or heard, or touched, not by the humans that walk this world, live and breathe and die?"

That was true. Jack took a mouthful of flat bread, with its odd paste, and nearly groaned at how good it all tasted. Jokul smiled, and continued.

"You have been this way for a while, and do not know why. Neither did I, when I... Well. I will get to that."

Get to what?

Jokul took a deep breath, and looked out to the mouth of the cave. "You died," he said, his voice very quiet. "You did a thing, a brave thing, a necessary thing, but still, you died. You... Odin, jeg trenger din veiledning. Vær så snill, All Fader, gi meg ordene og styrken til å snakke dem."

He bowed his head, tension in the line of his neck and the set of his shoulders. "The Moon," he said. "The Moon, it called to you, told you a name and then... nothing. The Valkyrie did not come for me, my ancestors did not stand at the gates of Valhalla to welcome me to Odin's hall. I simply wandered across the land of my people. The Gods were not there."

"I drowned," Jack said quietly. "Thin ice. I saved my sister, though." At least he'd done something right.

"And that is why the Moon chose you. I, I starved, willingly and yes, joyfully! For my brother, my sister, they needed the food and young as they were... Help was coming, but not soon enough if the stores were split in three. In two, with children, they would make it." Jokul grinned, bright and mischievous. "I tricked them until the very last, my siblings, and lived to see them rescued. It was good. And then..." He sighed, and spread his hands. "And then.

"We are spirits, Jack. Elemental spirits, I am told, though I have heard the words of others calling me a seasonal spirit. Not the angels of Christianity, or demons, or the undead of my own religion. I was seen, now and again, by my people, when winter closed in upon them. But only when they believed that one other than a God could help them, only when they spoke my name and willed that I _must_ exist, because otherwise all that was left was despair.

"In the years since my death, I have become the wind that chills bone, the desperation that finds the squirrel's stash of nuts that sees one through another night, the laughter of thwarting winter's darkness, the ice that claims the murderer's life. This, I am. This, I was chosen for."

Jokul looked over at Jack. "This, you were chosen for."

Jack lowered his head, and clutched the last of his meal. Chosen for? To be this- this _elemental spirit_? Why? " _Why_?"

"I have not asked anyone else," Jokul said. He crossed his legs and leaned forward. "Those I talk to- they are either very powerful, or very weak. The powerful, they do not mean to but they frighten me. They are- like Thor. The lightning is but sparks from his anvil when he beats upon it in anger. The very powerful might not think to harm me, but if I anger them... Thor need not be angry with me, personally, but the lightning will hurt all the same. Or kill.

"The very weak, their minds are as their strength. To keep a thought in mind for five minutes, it is a wonder, you see? So I could ask, but they could not be able to answer."

Jack nodded. He thought he understood. "But you must have ideas."

"Oh, yes," Jokul said. "Many. In my time, reading was not a thing done over much, but now? Bah, I got bored, and learnt. And Christians are many things, but they do hoard their books."

Jack chuckled. He'd never been a good enough Church goer to be insulted by Jokul's assessment of Christians.

Besides, the Catholic Church had the _best_ libraries.

"So," Jokul said. "The Moon is a Power, yes? _Perhaps_ not a God- perhaps. I have never seen my Gods, and I began to wonder, long ago, if they were real. Perhaps, as with us, they are real only so long as they are believed in."

"The Christian God, too?" Jack asked.

"Who can say? I believe that there is something out there, not the Moon." Jokul shrugged. "It is not for the likes of me to think about. But, the Moon, it is a Power. Strong enough to raise the dead to be its hands upon the Earth. There have been times I have felt death near those I helped, or those who deserved death's attentions- and I did deliver those people to that one."

Jack shuddered. He didn't remember actually dying, had never seen anything around when people had died, but he believed that there was _something_ that gathered up souls.

Oh yes. He believed in Death.

 And he desperately wanted to stay away from that one's attentions.

"To be the Moon's hands?" Jack asked.

"If you could see all the world, good and evil. What would you do?"

Jack half-closed his eyes while he thought. All the good and evil in the world? He'd... Jack uncurled his fist, and ice flaked off his knuckles. "I'd stop the evil," he said.

"Could you? All you can do is _watch_. You cannot _do_ anything." Jokul breathed deeply. "But say, you can watch. You can see, these are the people who are very good. And perhaps, perhaps you learn how to touch their souls, and then- I want to think, to believe, that I, we, were given a _choice_. That I only do not remember, because one _cannot_ remember when one speaks directly with a Power. That I was given understanding of what would happen, and chose to come _back_ , and do what I could to make things _right_."

Jack reached over and picked up his staff. He smoothed his fingers over the weathered wood, traced new patterns in the frost, and then looked up. "You think the Moon chose us to fight the evil in the world?"

"Cruelty, injustice, baseless fear- yes. And Jack." Jokul leaned forward, his eyes wide and serious. "Never doubt that there _is_ evil, and those _chosen_ for evil. Not by the Moon, I know. There are things in the shadows, that corrupt the hearts of men."

Jack shivered, and looked around the cave. "Why in the shadows?"

"It is easier to hide what you do in the darkness. But just because something stands in the light does not make it good."

No. No, there was evil that flourished in the day as well as in the night. Jack had seen it, in his own country even. Forcing people out of their homes, just because they didn't share your culture or language, or skin tone- he wanted to think he'd disapproved when he was alive, but had he even _thought_ about it?

He couldn't remember.

Jokul shook his head, as if shaking the serious topic off. "So. We are spirits of winter and cold. It is to us that winter not be a time of fear. The sun will rise, the snow will melt, and we will give over to spring when it is time."

"I- I can frost the leaves, and they turn," Jack offered. "And the crops, too. They ripen."

Jokul frowned, and then shrugged. "Not the exact same as I, then. It is winter depths I guide. You, it is, I think you are for the shallows of winter, the frost of harvest and early spring, and the gentle snows."

It sounded right, it _felt_ right. "Frost," he murmured. "Well, it's part of my _name_."

Jokul chuckled, and spread his hands. "There you are. So, Jack of the Frost. I will make an offer to you."

"I'm listening."

"I am old," Jokul said. "Older than I appear- some five hundred years, and I grow tired. You can only fight for so long," he said, and sounded wistful. "And I believe I hear my family call to me, now. But I am not yet ready. There are more spirits of evil, in winter. Perhaps because there are longer nights, harsher times."

Jack clutched his staff. "What are you saying?" That Jokul was going to- going to die? Give up?

"It is not yet my time," the spirit said. His eyes glittered, almost seemed to glow. "But soon, within the century. And you are young. You need taught. I would teach you, as my mentor taught me so long ago, and then when I cannot stay away from my family any longer you would be ready, would be strong."

Jack clenched his eyes shut. "I don't- I barely know you, and I don't want you to die."

"There is a time to live, and a time to die. All things have their season. We, who are of winter, know this better than most."

A tear slipped down his cheek. "Teach me," he said. "Jokul Frosti. Teach me. And then, when you are ready... I will be able to stand without you."

Jokul's smile lit up the cave. He was not a beautiful man, not handsome or even comely. But when he smiled, the peace in the expression, the joy, made Jack's breath catch in his throat.

"Thank you," Jokul said. "I will do as well for you as my teacher did for me. So. We will begin..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On fan theory has Jack with German heritage. I ran with it. Also, according to reliable research (these people have letters after their names!) the Old Norse ate unleavened barley bread. Jokul Frosti was Norse in life, he knows how to cook it. 
> 
> Jokul's non-English was put through Google Translate. I'm sure if it was put through again to get English, something hilarious will show up. 
> 
> Final note for this chapter, I won't be detailing EVERY year (or even every decade) of Jack's three-hundred years. Sometimes things just didn't happen. I'll be showing what did.


	4. Lost

There was almost nothing left in the cauldron. Almost. Enough of the potion was left, and his teaching had been very thorough. Opium, poppy seeds, aloe, henbane, hemlock, parsley, solanine, and asafetida. And, for some reason, a poor wine, practically vinegar. The wine wouldn't change the effects of the potion, though perhaps the _hexenwolf_ had drunk the potion, instead of only breathing the fumes.

Astonishing he hadn't died then. Or she, but most _hexenwolves_ were male. Females had other methods of enacting their vengeance. Or going about with casual cruelty, he supposed.

There were traces of some kind of ointment on the ground around the burnt-out fire. The ointment itself varied so much it mattered very little; he was careful only not to step in any of the smears. He had no idea what the hallucinogenic would do to a spirit, but he had no desire to find out.

He knelt down to study the tracks. The _hexenwolf_ had started out human, but at the edge of the second circle the footprints became paw prints. He held his hand out over one of the prints; fingers spread, he still couldn't cover the entire thing.

A very big wolf, then. A good thing he was prepared.

_Hexenwolves_ were like _loup-garou_ ; they sought out the nearest human habitation and tore into the first thing that moved. The more helpless, the better. Now, where was the nearest village?

He had learnt how to move unseen and unheard. Invisibility worked only on humans, not on other spirits. The sorts of things he hunted, well, he did not want them to know he was coming after them. He would rather take them from behind, a knife slid between ribs or through the vertebrae, or lethal cold as they slept, than in an all out fight. It was easier, that way.

He could have flown, but the North Wind was hardly subtle.

So he walked. Glided, rather, from patch of moonlight to patch of moonlight. Perhaps anyone else would hold to the shadows, but he was too pale for that. He all but glowed in the darkness.

In moonlight, he would glow, but no more or less than anything else. He moved with the pattern of the wind and the shadows, all but assuring he would blend in with the forest background.

The _hexenwolf_ was overconfident, new, or both. It left a trail a toddler could have followed; an unpleasant thought. The idea of a child beneath that beast's claws and fangs, or indeed, anyone...

He sped up, just in time to hear the beast ahead, thrashing through the underbrush. He tightened his grip on his weapon. The staff felt heavy in his hands, slick with ice that sheathed the wood, and extended a pointy extra foot from the butt, turning it into a crude spear. It had been enough for three other _hexenwolves_ over the years. It would be enough for this one, too.

"Come to me, beast," he whispered, and mentally called the North Wind to carry his words to the monster's ears. "Come to me, and die."

Challenge given. Would it be accepted?

He counted beneath his breath. Until five hundred, he decided. Then he would have waited long enough.

He hadn't hit twenty when he heard the monster howl. It was not, precisely, a wolf's howl. It was not the way a man sounded when trying to mimic a wolf's call. Rather, it was a mix of the two, enraged and insane. He had heard such howls before, and they still chilled his blood. Even _his_ blood.

He twitched, and forced himself to laugh. "Come, then!" he called. "Let us dance!"

Then he jumped up, into the tree branches overhead. He moved to stand on one thick branch, close to the trunk. Close enough to be missed by an enraged _hexenwolf_ looking for a cheeky victim.

He narrowed his eyes when the beast came into sight. A huge wolf, almost the size of a small pony, emaciated until he could count its ribs through its fur. Saliva hung in thick ropes from its lips, dripped infrequently to the ground, and glistened like slick ice in the moonlight. There was no way to tell the color of its fur; everything was in shades of black, white, and silver. It had a dark coat, of that much, he could tell.

The beast sniffed the ground, where he had stood only moments before, and then looked up. Directly at him. It snarled, and revealed fangs as long as his little finger.

Then it leapt for him.

Jack flipped out of the way, and didn't waste time wondering how he'd been spotted. The assassination had abruptly turned into a fight. _Hexenwolves_ were dangerous, supernaturally fast, strong, and able to ignore wounds that would take down an American grizzly bear.

He held his staff at the ready, and hovered a comfortable ten feet off the ground. The _hexenwolf_ seemed to chuckle at him, lips peeled back to show its teeth all the way back to its molars. Its teeth, Jack noticed, were coated in a nasty black scum.

"You weren't supposed to drink the potion," he murmured, deliberately quiet. "Only breathe the fumes in. Didn't anyone teach you any better?"

The beast roared, and launched itself at him again. Jack dodged, but somehow he had missed that the _hexenwolf_ was built more like a bear than a wolf. It swiped to the side, and its claws tore into his shirt. Already tattered and worn and little more than threads held together by his frost, it pulled free from his body and fell to the ground.

At least, he thought, the beast hadn't scored a hit. Only ruined his shirt. Oh, well. It was long past time to replace it.

The monster bounced off a tree trunk, and snapped its formidable jaws at Jack's foot. Jack kicked his feet up in the air, spinning around the axis of his shoulders, and brought the butt of his staff down at the _hexenwolf's_ back.

It dodged to the side, but the blade of ice sliced through fur and flesh and when Jack flicked his eyes down to check the blade still had its edge, the ice was red. Well, black, in _this_ light, but close enough.

Jack laughed, and brandished his bloody weapon.

The _hexenwolf_ screamed again, and jumped into the underbrush.

Jack stopped laughing, and floated in a small circle, staff at the ready. That hadn't been planned. He'd expected the monster to lose what little control it had left and try to drag him down, not... vanish.

Had it run? He didn't think so, but he couldn't be certain.

A twig snapped behind him. It was his only warning.

The _hexenwolf_ weighed more than he'd expected. Its paws came down on his shoulders, shoved him to the ground. Jack grunted, all the breath forced out, and lost hold of his staff. It skittered and slid across the ground, not far but just out of reach.

He could feel the monster's breath stir the hair on the back of his head. Jack hissed, and tried to push up, get the monster off his back. He wasn't strong enough to shift so much as an inch.

Ah, well, he was stuck. Not helpless.

Ice curled around his fingers, before moving to his palm and shaping into a wicked dagger with jagged edges. He didn't waste any time admiring it, simply stabbed it up and back.

The _hexenwolf_ screamed, and jumped back. Jack got his fingers and toes beneath him, and somehow managed to scramble and lunge for his staff. He rolled over and got it up just in time. The beast's teeth closed on wood, instead of his flesh.

Without the ice sheathing it, his staff might have shattered.

Jack yelled, and kicked the _hexenwolf_ in the throat. A second time. The third, the monster gagged and let go of the staff. Jack immediately swung it, awkward and constrained, so the crook smashed into the _hexenwolf's_ ear. It turned to snap at his staff, and he swung it the other way. The frozen spear-tip slashed across the _hexenwolf's_ nose.

It backed off again, eyes all but glowing with rage. Literally, in fact; like a real wolf's, the _hexenwolf's_ eyes reflected the moonlight.

He needed it to come close enough for one decisive move. It would hurt, Jack knew, but if he didn't stop it now... It was stronger than he was. Possibly even faster. Meaner. It would wear him down, and kill him, and when that happened no one else could stop it.

He was not afraid of pain.

"Come on then!" he yelled, and brandished his staff. A stance perfect for offence. Not so much for defense.

The _hexenwolf_ noticed it, too. It launched itself at Jack, and he wasn't able to move his staff fast enough. The beast closed its jaws on his thigh, and began to tear.

Jack stabbed his staff through the _hexenwolf's_ ribs. It convulsed, tightened its grip on his leg, and then let go and staggered to the side. It twitched, thrashed, fell over, and continued to struggle against the inevitable.

Jack froze the wound in his leg, a temporary measure while he dealt with the beast, and formed another ice blade. The _hexenwolf_ never noticed him as he stepped up, and sliced its throat.

The blood was hot, almost burning, and sprayed out over everything. Jack chose to be grateful his shirt had already been ruined. It was easier to wash blood off of skin than out of fabric. His pants would need to be replaced, though.

The _hexenwolf_ shuddered, and then fell still. Its eyes glazed over in death, and then the beast shimmered, and the wolf melted into a man. He wasn't memorable; Jack must have seen hundreds of men like him, plain featured, the kind that was lost in a crowd even when alone. He wore nothing but a belt made from a wolf's skin and tail, and even as he watched, the belt crumbled to dust.

He pulled his staff free from the man's torso, and banished the bloody ice. Let the body be found, or not, he didn't care. He had killed the monster, and that was all that mattered.

Jack staggered, and leaned heavily on his staff. Owch. His leg hurt.

Well, time to get back and report. Stitch up his thigh, too; good thing he hadn't been dealing with a _loup-garou_. Spirits were resistant to the cursed bite, but he didn't want to spend another month feverish, able to stay awake only long enough to drink a little broth and empty his bladder. It hadn't been fun, and Jokul had painted flowers on his arms and shoulders.

Jack had shaved the old Norseman in retaliation. Jokul had been bald for about as long as it took the paint to wear off Jack's arms.

He sighed, and climbed one giant of a tree. It was harder than it had to be, between his bad leg and holding onto his staff with one hand. Once he was in the higher branches, he whistled. "Wind!" he called, and felt the North Wind respond. "Take me to Jokul!"

The Wind swept down and snatched him up, carrying him high into the air.

Jack still wasn't sure if the Wind was sentient or not. He had met several of the weak elementals Jokul occasionally used as informants; their minds fluttered about like butterflies, but once they saw or heard something, they tended to remember it. If you had enough time and patience, eventually they would answer your questions, sometimes with useful information.

The Wind was smarter than those elementals, but not as smart as a stronger spirit like Jack, Jokul, or- shudder and think _very_ quietly here- the Snow Queen. Rather, the Wind- or Winds, North, South, East and West- were about as intelligent as the hunting dogs Jokul talked about having owned once. Fierce and independent, smart enough to be left to their own devices, but loyal enough when they'd decided you were worth it. A hunting dog had been almost as valued as a good sword to the old Norse, at least if you listened to Jokul go on about them.

German's forests flashed by beneath him as the Wind hurried him along. Jack chuckled to himself, and spread his arms out to give the Wind more to grab onto. The North Wind seemed eager to get him back to the current base of operations. Not a cave in a glacier this time, but a cave in some pretty Scandinavian mountains.

At least he didn't have to cross an ocean to get to the medical supplies.

The Wind carried Jack at very near the limits of his inhuman body. He could breathe, even when the air rushed past his face too quickly for it to be possible. He could feel the pressure on his eyes, but he could still see. The speed of his travel ruffled his hair and tugged lightly at his cloak, but it should have torn the flesh from his bones and didn't.

It meant they reached Jokul's cave far sooner than anyone watching would have reason to suspect. It was only an hour, certainly no more than two, before Jack touched down at the mouth of the cave.

"I'm home," he called, and dismissed the Wind with a wave and thought of thanks. It swirled off, no doubt to cause trouble for a few annoying air elementals.

"Was there any trouble?" Jokul's voice quavered, the old man having lost nearly all his strength.

"A bit." No need to trouble him unduly. Jack had learnt how to patch himself up on his own; he could even tend to wounds on his back, if he needed to. "Lost my shirt."

"I might have an answer to that."

"Pants, too?"

"I have to do _something_ while lying about here."

Jack grinned, and found the medical kit. He noted the supplies that were getting low, mentally ran through just how he'd top them back up, and banished the ice from his thigh. He had to cut off the entire leg of his pants in order to properly clean and stitch up the wound. He used the ruined leather as bandages, instead of the last of their linen strips. Of course they reused old bandages, after boiling them clean, but everything wore out.

He put away the kit, and limped back into the main part of the cave.

Despite their shared distaste for open flames, Jack had set out several crude lamps for light. The fuel in the hibachi had burned low, so he topped it up with several pine branches. The cave immediately began to warm, banishing most of the chill Jack carried around with him in his bones. Nothing warmed his hands or feet, but he was used to that by now, most days. It wasn't like his fingers and toes had gone numb, or dead, just a little cold. The permanent chill was more than worth being immune to cold's effects.

Jokul was propped up in his bed, little more than a heap of furs and rough cushions on the ground. He looked every day of his five-hundred-plus years. His once thick, if oddly styled, hair was little more than a few straggling hairs now, and his formerly bright blue eyes were clouded and narrowed in a permanent squint. He'd lost almost all his weight, so the bones showed through clearly, and age had claimed most of his teeth, his magic, and his ability to stand unaided.

He would die, and soon. He was determined to finish writing down everything he could remember in his notebook, first. There hadn't been enough time for him to teach Jack what Jokul felt he needed to know; it had only been something like twenty years since they'd first met. As such, when Jokul began to deteriorate, he began to write. In German, the language they both shared.

"Do you need the necessity pit?" Jack asked.

"Wouldn't say no," his mentor replied. "Your leg?"

"Already tended." Jack bent down, and scooped Jokul up in his arms, blankets and all. The man weighed hardly anything. Granted, Jack had put on weight- muscle, all- since joining up with the elder spirit, but even so.

He carried Jokul out to the necessity pit, just down the slope a little and in the woods. He set the man down beside the rock cairn he'd put up to mark the spot out, and then retreated enough to give Jokul his privacy. When Jokul was done, Jack carried him back into the cave, then turned to look through their stores to figure out dinner.

"Nothing for me," Jokul said. "I'm not hungry."

He rarely was, these days. He ate his morning gruel and drank what broth Jack made him, but only because he had to, not because he wanted to.

Jack nodded, and didn't press the issue. He got a vegetable soup set up, and left it to simmer while he did a few of the chores. Gathering wood for the fire, topping up the oil lamps with reindeer fat melted to a usable liquid, neatening their few possessions.

"Enough, enough. It can all keep," Jokul said. "I can't watch you looking like that. In the chest, under my old cloak."

Jack raised his eyebrows, but moved over to their one real piece of furniture. Jokul couldn't sit in a chair anymore, and Jack was young enough not to bother, so when they'd moved to the cave he hadn't made any new ones. The chest, though, that they had taken with them.

Jokul's cloak, a heavy bearskin that came, so he claimed, from his mortal life, was set to one side. Beneath it, Jack found clothing, made to his size. His hands trembled a little as he drew the pieces out. It was in an older style than he'd started out wearing, older even than the Renaissance. The long breeches were made of leather, like his now-ruined trousers, but in the same style as Jokul's knitted wool breeches. The tunic was made out of an off-white linen, while the jerkin that went over it was also made out of leather.

Somehow, Jokul had tanned the leather so it was so pale it was all but gray. He had managed to somehow embroider the leather jerkin with tufts of dyed fur, in blue, white, and palest green, in a pattern of snowflakes. The tunic, too, had been embroidered, though with linen thread, with the same colors and pattern.

"Jokul," he said, stammering a little. "Jokul, how did you- where did you- _when_ did you-?"

"As I said." Pride was thick in his voice. "I have to do _something_ while just lying about."

This was more than just 'something'. Jack immediately pulled on his new clothing, and sighed at the feeling of leather soft as thistledown against his thighs and calves, and the water-smooth flow of the linen shirt. He had almost forgotten what new clothing felt like.

"You look good," Jokul said, and smiled, his mouth trembling. Age, Jack knew, not emotion. Jokul only showed what he wanted to show, when it came to his feelings. "Not at all like me, which is for the best."

Jack looked away. As similar as they were, there was still some disagreement between the two of them. Jack would have been happy to look as much like Jokul as possible; Jokul would have preferred Jack looked as different as possible.

"It was a _hexenwolf_ ," he said. "The last of the pack." There could- would- always be more, but that particular group of monsters had terrorized the German villagers to the point where they feared going out into their fields. It was late autumn, and Jack had been frosting the crops every night to urge them ripe. The villagers needed to go out. Therefore, the _hexenwolves_ needed to be killed.

"Good. Very good. Sit down, we need to talk."

Jack raised his eyebrows, but knelt down beside the old man's bedside. "About?"

Jokul touched the leather cover of his book. "I have finished it."

Ah. His death, then. "You know I will do whatever you require, say whatever you need me to say."

"That, we do not need to speak of." Jokul patted Jack's knee. "No, this speech is of you. Of what you are to do, when I have gone on to Odin's Hall."

Jack tilted his head. "The same as you have been teaching me. Warding Winter, dealing with the evil that falls within my domain."

The old Norseman tried to slap him upside the head, but couldn't lift his arm high enough. Jack smiled, though he didn't feel like it, and bent forward so he could reach. Jokul's slap was more like a brush of fingers against Jack's wild mane than anything. It was the thought that counted.

"This is not your territory," he said. "You are here as my apprentice, but there are others..." He paused to catch his breath. "There is a man. Not winter, as we are, but of the season. Enough to count. He comes from Russia, and is spreading to Christian held lands. _Sinterklass_. He spreads light, and the darkness weakens."

Jack nodded; that was one of the first things Jokul had taught him. It wasn't only the two of them that fought evil; it was every spirit that set out to bring hope and joy, wonder and dreams, or every spirit that rescued humans in danger or just kept them out of danger in the first place. Jack's ability to make people laugh, even if they didn't see him, with nothing but a snowflake or snowball, was just one more weapon against evil.

"Sinterklass... Saint Klaus?" he asked, translating the Dutch to English. The language felt clumsy on his tongue.

"Santa Claus," Jokul corrected. "But yes. Too, the Winter Court becomes active again."

Jack shuddered. The Winter Court- well, Jokul had told him a little. Enough to give him nightmares. "They do not tolerate outside activity," he said. Like the _hexenwolves_ or _loup-garou_ , the necromancers and black witches. If they didn't belong to the Winter Court, they were hunted down and killed. Eventually.

"You stand opposed to all the Court holds dear," Jokul said. "And you are young, Jack. Perhaps when you have obtained your power, then you can fight them, but as you are now they would try to bring you into their fold. However it takes."

"What do you think I should do, then?"

"Return to your land of America. Make of it your own. The Winter Court has no hold there, most of the evil must travel by human across the sea. You could _block_ them, Jack, _keep_ them from your territory from the start."

It's an idea, and it has merit. It is a goal, something he can focus on through the decades (eventually, centuries) until it is his time, too, to die. Jack lowered his head, and breathed slowly in and out through his nose.

He will live for his duty, he decided. It is what Jokul did. "I will," he said, and looked up. "After."

"After." Jokul rested his hand on Jack's knee again. "It won't be long."

It wasn't. The next morning, Jokul was gone, nothing but a scattering of snowflakes left where his body had been.

Jack gathered up his staff, the book, and nothing else. He called on the Wind and headed towards North America at all speed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The term 'Hexenwolf' is from the Dresden Files, to refer to someone able to take the shape of a wolf by wearing a magic belt made out of wolf fur. It's something given to a person by a greater power- a demon, according to Dresden Files- and besides the shape changing, it allows a Thing of great evil to basically take over your mind. As for the potion referenced in the first paragraph of this chapter, it was considered a real thing that enabled someone wearing a wolf belt to transform. (The wine I added in, because my hexenwolf was also a moron.) Ointments were also used, but they were typically hallucinogenic (and how much of the potion made people see things, too?)
> 
> I'm using the idea of territories here; each spirit has a place where they belong, and if you're in the wrong place and/or culture, you'd better have either a damn good reason (your culture's influence is spreading, or it's shrank and you're tied to a place) or permission. Jack had Jokul's permission, but Jokul, being dead, can't protect and hide Jack from the greater powers of European winter. Thank goodness this Sinterklauss guy's story is spreading. 
> 
> (Researching Santa mythology was a headache. I finally made the Author Decision of saying the Guardian's fight with Pitch as in the books occured in 1783, which IS about when Sinterklauss started spreading beyond the Dutch, and Nicholas St. North got the corrosponding power boost of more believers. No one wanted to mess with the former bandit, so the Nasty Things got quieter. Maybe moved to America with their believers.)


	5. Confrontation

**Niagara Frontier, 1813**

Someone was laughing.

Jack looked up from his work, and frowned. This was not a place where laughter was appropriate. The most he would do was give the poor bastards in the healers' tents a cheerful outlook. They were injured, they wouldn't be asked to fight again- or not until they were well- and it could always be worse, couldn't it? Could have lost a hand or leg. Maybe they'd limp the rest of their lives, maybe they'd never be able to win a wrestling contest, but they had their lives and their bodies.

A cheerful outlook, yes. But not to the point of laughter.

It came from another tent, one kept a little bit separate from the others. That was where the poor, bloody bastards, the ones that likely wouldn't live out the night, were taken. There was no hope for them, no future, only making them as comfortable as possible before they died.

Jack stood up, and walked through several orderlies to the door. No one else could hear the laughter. A spirit, then. And with things as they were... Damn. He'd thought he'd blocked off the area well enough.

Apparently, some spirits could work magic. Like the wizards of stories, changing one thing into another, or warding entire cities against dark influences. Jack wasn't one of them. He'd tricked some information out of Magpie, a Native spirit, and he understood belief in the protections made them stronger. That was all. Dark spirits that came across his efforts might suddenly want to go somewhere else, but they wouldn't be driven off or blocked out.

For that, Jack had his staff, and Jokul's training.

He crossed between the tents, and ignored the prickling of being walked through. They couldn't see him? He didn't have to get out of their way.

The tent was dark, except where small holes in the fabric let in sunlight. Jack understood the reasoning; these were the people missing half a head, most of their body, too broken to even have a chance at making it to the end of the week, let alone surviving. Better that they be drugged to painlessness, better that they froze in the night, than suffer another day of Hell.

Once he'd dealt with whatever was laughing, he might numb their pain further. It would ensure the poor souls in the beds passed on.

He must have made some sound, because a dark figure- of _course_ a dark figure, Jack thought- straightened up and turned to face him. Jack couldn't see much, only a pair of glowing, yellow eyes.

"What is this?" the person asked.

Jack shrugged one shoulder. "I could ask the same as you. I have claimed this place as mine own. Why do you invade?"

"This place?" The person might have spread its arms. If it had arms. "The river? Or this place, the tents?"

"The tents." And America, but Jack wasn't powerful enough to back that up. Not yet. Possibly not ever.

Not that he cared.

"Is it the pain that calls you?" A chuckle. "The fear is mine, boy. I will be sure to mention your conduct and ill manners to the Winter Court."

Jack smiled, and bowed. "I think you misunderstand. I'm not of that Court, or any Court. I am my own man. And you are intruding."

He didn't see what happened next. He didn't even realize what happened until a battering ram walloped him one in the chest and sent him flying.

He hit the ground and bounced, rolled over in the mud, and finally skidded to a stop. His chest hurt. A horse's kick might have hurt less. At least he still had his staff; if there was one thing he'd learnt under Jokul, it was to keep hold of his weapon.

Shadows boiled up from the ground several feet away, twisting and melding together to make a human shape. Then the individual Jack had spoken to stepped forward, shadows trailing from his sleeves and shoulders like smoke.

"Why, you're nothing but a child," the person said. He clasped his hands under his chin, and made kitten eyes at him. "So young and helpless, I thought I was speaking to someone important."

Jack stood up, and leaned on his staff. Not entirely because his legs felt a bit wobbly. "And you are nothing but a trick of the light. Why are you here?"

The person- _probably_ a man, but there was no sense in assuming anything- tsked, and began walking a wide circle around Jack. Jack took the time to study the individual. Black hair, cropped very short, and pale gray skin, like a corpse. The yellow eyes he'd noticed before, a slightly crooked nose, and thin lips. Broad shoulders and long fingered hands, everything else hidden beneath a robe like a monk might wear- if he'd gone mad and slaughtered his brothers, then bathed in the blood.

Jack felt his stomach clench, but didn't change expression. This was one of the shadows, he thought. One of the _things_ that got into peoples' heads and drove them mad.

Evil.

"I am here, because they are afraid." The person gestured towards the distant tents. "Even unconscious, too deep for dreaming, they know they are dying, and oh, what agony!"

"Then I must have you leave," Jack said. "I have claimed this place, as I have said. And I will not allow you to stay a moment longer."

"Surely we could share."

"You misunderstand me. I am not like you." Jack straightened up, and watched the individual. "I am not _weak_ , to prey on others."

He saw the gold eyes widen, then narrow in fury.

He did not see the person move.

He felt it, though.

Jack slammed face first into the ground, and then was whipped around until his back hit a tree trunk. He clawed at the hand holding him by the throat, crushing his neck, not quite enough to kill him.

"Interesting," the person said. "You know, I think we got off on the wrong foot. Shall we start over? My name is Pitch Black, the Nightmare King."

He let up his grip on Jack's throat, and the boy gasped for breath. Only when he'd eased the ache in his lungs did he look up and meet the man's eyes.

"I am Jack Frost," he said. "Ward of Winter."

"Another one?" Pitch Black caressed the side of Jack's neck with his thumb. "Another poor, misguided fool..." He clucked his tongue. "Perhaps I should help you."

Jack tightened his grip on his staff, but didn't move. Not yet. "You? Don't make me laugh."

"Of course me, who else? I'm the only one here, Jack. I have been on this earth for a long time, you know. Long enough to know power, strength. Think about it. The Winter Court- you said you don't belong to them. Too crude, too cruel, to brutish for you?" Pitch Black smiled, and revealed jagged teeth and breath reminiscent of a bog. "I could help you, teach you, and then you could challenge the Queen. Become King. Rule Winter."

Despite himself, his breath caught. Rule Winter? And all therein? He could make it a court of law, and like it or not those that bowed to him would have to do his will. No more preying on humans, their pain and sorrow.

Jack looked to the side, at his staff. His shepherd's crook.

Then he looked back up at Pitch Black, and smiled. "An interesting thought," he said. He lifted one foot; the Nightmare King didn't seem to notice. Then Jack kicked him, low in the stomach. "Not interested!"

It didn't have the effect he'd intended. Yes, Pitch Black doubled over, wheezing. No, he didn't let go of Jack's neck; he held on tighter.

Jack formed an ice blade, and slashed at Pitch Black's arm. The man flinched, and threw him to the side.

He bounced, twisted in midair, and landed on his feet, weapons at the ready.

Pitch Black glowered at him, and then, strangely, smiled.

And held up a leather bound book. "Is this yours?"

Jack's eyes widened. He didn't even have to check, he could feel the lack of weight in his- his satchel! Pitch Black held that in his other hand.

Damn. There wasn't anything Jack couldn't live without in the bag, save the book, but they were things he valued all the same. As for the book, _maybe_ he'd be done studying it in another five or six decades. If he concentrated.

"Return to me my property," Jack said.

"A deal," Pitch Black said. "These things, for my departure. Mm? You can hardly ask fairer than that, with such a feast here."

"The bag for your departure, not the book."

"All, or nothing."

Jack breathed slowly through his nose. "Done," he said. "Now go."

The Nightmare King grinned, stepped backwards, and vanished into the shadows. He waved Jack's book as he faded out of sight.

Bastard.

Now what?

He shook his head and returned to the tents. He had work to do. If Pitch Black had gotten through, it was possible someone else had, too.

Nothing had. Jack did a quick circle of the entire camp, but found only the expected. Mortals, and mortal soldiers besides, so drinking and gambling and a few dealings with the camp followers. One or two couples that, strictly speaking, weren't allowed under the law; both parties male, all desperate to share comfort between them, while terrified of being caught.

Jack smiled at those poor unfortunates, and moved on. He supposed there was something wrong with him; even as a human, he hadn't been all that interested in either gender. Oh, he'd known that one day he'd marry and have a few children of his own, but that had been far off, not until he'd gotten settled and secure. Now, a spirit, the chances of his finding a partner were remote. Not that he cared.

Pitch Black would return, he thought, and looked up at the moon. The spirits of cruelty- dark or light, both- didn't stop until they were dead. That was just how these things went.

Jack had defied him, drawn blood- though admittedly the wound had been little more than a scratch. Oh yes, Pitch Black would return. And now he had Jack's book, and the advantage.

"So," Jack said. "I can either be killed... Or find someone new to teach me."

He pressed a hand to his chest. Jokul hadn't been dead for more than thirty years yet, he was still mourning, and the thought of a new teacher... It hurt. But if he didn't get help, then... There were more dangers that Pitch Black in the world, and he didn't know nearly enough.

"Who could help me?" he asked. "Someone strong." Eurasia, he thought. The sort of dangers Jack faced would come from there, or have their roots begin there. Someone Jokul had respected...

" _Sinterklauss_ ," he said, and smiled. "Now where does he hide?"

Time for research. That meant a trip into town, listening to all the stories.

Fun times.

* * *

Sinterklauss, Saint Nicholas, or Santa Claus, apparently lived at the North Pole. Where had _that_ come about, Jack wondered. He hadn't been that far north- and why not? Apparently it was cold year round, sounded absolutely perfect.

The man brought presents to all the good boys and girls on the eve of Jesus' birth, and coal for the naughty. There was also something about a Krampus, but Jack hadn't heard much about that, so while he tucked the information away he didn't pay it much heed.

He scrambled up onto the house roof, and called the Wind. It swept down, ruffled his wild mane, and then snatched him up. He got the sense that it was waiting for his direction, and grinned.

"Santa Claus," he said. "Let's go find him. To the North, my Wind!"

The Wind tossed him high, caught him, and then roared northward.

It took several days to reach the glaciers, but it was winter and Jack didn't need to sleep. He did have the Wind set him down several times, so he could find food, but it didn't take very long and they were on their way again after little but an hour or two.

The glaciers reminded him of Greenland, and he felt a sudden pang of- not quite homesickness, but definitely longing. Some of the happiest memories he had of his new life were in Greenland, and the glaciers there.

This wasn't home, he told himself. Now, to find Saint Nickolas.

There wasn't any food, but Jack ignored the needs of his body. When he had to sleep, he did so in short naps. He concentrated almost entirely on searching for the hidden home of the Santa Claus.

It could have been only days, or it could have been months, before he found it. It was built onto the side of the cliff, it looked like, a fantastic construction of wood and stone covered over by ice and snow. Jack breathed deeply, and felt something inside him relax. He'd found it.

Now, to speak with the man himself.

The Wind carried him over to the front door. He knocked on it, and then when his fist made barely any sound, hit the door with the butt of his staff. That was better.

He waited several minutes, and just when he'd lifted his staff to knock again, the door was yanked open.

That... wasn't Santa Claus.

Jack looked up, and _up_ , into a heavily furred face. The Sasquatch rumbled at him, a word or a growl, he couldn't say. It seemed irritated and inquiring, at once.

Right. What was he doing?

"I came to speak with the Santa Claus," Jack said.

The Sasquatch snapped something at him, and slammed the door.

What?

Jack frowned. Was this where Santa Claus lived? There was nowhere else in the entire northern plains of ice and snow. He had to be here. Or was it... Jack smoothed a hand over his hair, and grimaced. That might be it. His clothes had been new thirty years ago, and clean, but they weren't anymore. Never changing them, getting into any number of fights, might have been a factor. As for his hair, it was getting long enough to dangle between his shoulder blades, and it was tangled besides. When he'd been with Jokul, he'd at least _tried_ to keep it somewhat neat.

"I look like a homeless madman," Jack told the Wind. "Oh, well. There's more than one way inside a building."

Except that everything he tried didn't work. The windows didn't open- or were slammed closed as he approached. The chimneys weren't an option; that was smoke coming out of them, which meant fire.

Jack eventually gave up when his vision began to blur. Hunger, he realized, not tears.

"Wind, take me back somewhere south," he said. The Wind picked him up, and carried him away.

He could always try again, later. After he'd cleaned up some.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Niagara Frontier, 1813, was part of the War of 1812, or America's independance from British rule. It was also the year Americans tried to cross the Canadian Border, and the Canadians said 'no'. (Canadian myself. Yes. The White House is white because of white wash because _we burnt it_. We are not America's hat. That is the last of my rant against annoying American co-workers of mine who are really annoying. Sorry.)
> 
> Jack needs a mentor, again. Yeah, sorry kid, you're not getting one.


	6. Captured

Bathing was hard to do when reflexive terror froze the water solid. Jack groaned, and knocked his forehead against a handy tree trunk. His fifth attempt at a bath had just ended... Well. He'd had to chip his way out of the ice. Good thing he hadn't been more than thigh high. He might have lost something he wasn't sure he wanted to lose.

He hadn't had this problem when he'd been with Jokul. But then, Jokul had had a hip tub, and it wasn't like the two of them cared much about privacy. Or been able to indulge in it even if they had. Jokul had bathed in front of Jack, Jack had bathed in front of Jokul, they'd even helped each other with backs and hair. Jack certainly hadn't had any panic attacks; there'd been no reason to.

Lakes, rivers, ponds... Yeah. Panic attacks. He hadn't even realized he could freeze the old Chambers Lake solid like that. In summer.

Maybe trying to bathe in the lake where he'd drowned wasn't the smartest of ideas. But it was the only place where it felt safe enough to strip down and scrub. Jack had tried other bodies of water, but his skin had started crawling the moment he took his leather jerkin off, never mind tunic and trousers.

He sat down, and grimaced when he realized his small clothes were getting dirty. At least he'd managed to wash his clothing before turning Chambers Lake into a solid block. Not that it did them much good. His trousers were more torn than his old pants had been- _after_ he'd cut off one leg for bandages. His tunic wasn't threadbare yet, but it was stained with mud, blood, and other, less identifiable things. His jerkin didn't have any embroidery left, and looked as though it had been beaten with a club that had nails sticking out of it. No wonder the Sasquatch hadn't let him in.

As much as he wanted to keep his clothing, he had to face facts. He had no way to repair the leather, the stains weren't coming out, and he needed to look respectable if the Sasquatch would let him talk to the Santa Claus. That also meant a bath, and doing something about his hair.

Jack closed his eyes, and considered his options.

He could always take clothing from the human rubbish. There would surely be something good enough to wear. As for the bath, there was always a lau

* * *

He woke up hanging between two humanoid figures. They were made completely of ice, as anatomically correct as a tree, and massive. Jack had the feeling that they had been told to be careful with him; either of the things could have easily wrapped one hand mitten-like around his torso and carried him that way, but they held him by the arms.

His shoulders hurt.

He breathed slowly, and felt for his staff. It was near; he turned his head to look, and saw it held in one massive hand. It looked like a toothpick.

Well. So, he'd been caught. By who and what, though?

Winter, he thought, and mentally blanched. Not the Winter Court? He'd thought he'd kept out of their notice, dealing with monsters they wouldn't have bothered with. Certainly he'd never gone after any of their members, even if he occasionally wanted to. The General of Winter, for instance, after he'd frozen several thousand mortal soldiers to get at one minor frostling that hadn't bowed properly to the Snow Queen.

He shook, and it didn't matter if anyone saw him. He was afraid. Jokul had told him- and if even a _tenth_ of what Jokul had said was true, then that meant-

"Oh, God," he whispered. "Deliver me from the hands of my enemies, I beg you."

The ice-guards carried him further down the hall, to a massive set of double doors. They were three times the height of the ice-guards, which were already close to what seemed fifteen feet tall. The doors were covered in bas-relief carvings of snowflakes, so many it was hard to tell what was supposed to be in the background. He thought a mountain, or maybe an iceberg.

The doors swung inwards without anyone touching them, and the ice-guards carried him in.

"Welcome, and well come, Jack Frost."

The Winter Court was beautiful, awe-full, and terrifying.

The great hall was big enough to fit two hundred people comfortably, three hundred if people were willing to forego a little personal space. It was dangerously close to monochrome, with white marble walls carved to look as though covered in sheets and twists of ice, black curtains on all the windows- which stretched floor to ceiling, and looked out over an untouched snow field- and a black and white marble floor. The floor, Jack noticed absently, had been done in a pattern of snowflakes, though it was hard to tell if they were white flakes on a black background, or black flakes on a white background.

The opposite side of the room had a low dais, with three chairs, and a slightly higher dais with a throne behind that. The chairs and throne all looked to have been hewn from giant blocks of ice, then left out to get a coating of snow for a few days. Perhaps that was exactly what had happened. The people sitting there- no. Not yet. He didn't dare look at the rulers of the Court yet.

Instead, he looked at the courtiers. There were more members of the Court, he knew, but those were the ones on the edges, the minor spirits with very little power. The fifty humanoids in the hall were the full members, and the powers. They managed to make the great hall look crowded.

There was some more color in their clothing and skin; not just white with touches of black, but gray, silver, washed out green and blue both pale and dark. The fashion, Jack noticed, was old. Older than the style his clothing was- had been. Fur was the choice of fabric, it seemed, and there was something horrible about the carefully preserved animal heads and feet that rested on shoulders or at hips.

He hadn't eaten meat in over a century.

Odd thing to think of, he knew. But he thought it anyways.

Finally, he could avoid it no longer. He looked up at the thrones. Before he could focus on the rulers of the Court, he noticed a flicker of movement, darkness in man's shape against the white wall.

It took him less than a second to recognize Pitch Black. The Nightmare King nodded to him, smiled, and disappeared behind a curtain. Probably out of the room, out of the entire Court's castle.

Damn it, and damn him. He must have discovered Jokul's warnings about the Court in the book, and reported Jack to them. The Court, the rulers, would not have been pleased with the idea of a winter spirit that didn't bow to them. They would...

His breathing sped up. What he wouldn't give to be dressed, instead of wearing only a pair of dusty small clothes and his hair.

The rulers of the court were beautiful. Of course they were. They were the Unseleighe Sidhe, and they couldn't be anything else.

The Queen sat on the throne, her King, General, and Knight on the seats just below. Jokul hadn't known much about the Sidhe, and Jack knew less, but he did know that the Courts were ruled by the Queens. Possibly it was an inverse of how power was distributed among human royalty.

The Snow Queen, Ruler over the Unseleighe and Winter Court, was impossible to describe. Jack couldn't even try, even to himself; he got as far as 'pointed ears' and 'white hair' and 'blue eyes' before his brain just glazed over and he couldn't do anything but stare. It was even harder to think about the King, General, and Knight; they too had pointed ears, white hair, and blue eyes, but if he'd had to describe them to another person, he just wouldn't be able to. Not their height, prospective weight, whether they had broad shoulders or narrow- _nothing_.

The ice-guards moved into ponderous motion, moving across the room- the courtiers moved back to give them space- and then dropped Jack in front of the dais.

He fell on his hands and knees, hair straggling forward to veil his face briefly. He swiped it back with one hand, and looked over at the clatter of his staff hitting the marble floor. At least he had that. He grabbed it, and all but cuddled it to his chest.

"Jack. Frost." The Winter Knight stood up, and descended the single step to the floor. Even his _boots_ were impossibly beautiful, and impossible to describe. White leather. Maybe.

"That's my name," he said quietly.

He really wished he had clothes. He might have felt less vulnerable if dressed.

"But not your Name," the Winter Knight said.

Jack pressed his lips together, so hard that they went white. Oh. Oh no. They wanted his Name, his True Name. It was different between spirits and humans, spirits and the Sidhe. The Sidhe could be controlled, absolutely, by their True Name; spirits could be bound to a thing or a duty; and humans, well, unless the human was born a mage of some sort, magic didn't work very well on them. Minor things, like Jack's cheer inducing snowflakes, was about the limit. However, with a True Name, the most powerful spells would work on the human.

The Knight didn't have to know what law applied to Jack, human or spirit. He just needed to know Jack's Name, and he'd be able to find out.

"I don't know what you mean," he said.

The Knight kicked him in the ribs. Something cracked; not the Knight's foot. Jack was sent sliding along the slick marble, until friction caught up and he stopped moving. He lay on his side, tried to catch his breath without actually breathing. Broken rib. Had to be.

"You would be wise not to lie to me."

Right. The Sidhe had a thing about lying. They couldn't do it, so they expected everyone around them to play by the same rules.

Jack remembered something Jokul had said. _"We are not powerful spirits. At some time, you will have to lie, but if you do, anyone stronger will know. You must lie with the truth."_

Well, hell. This was a Loki scenario.

Jokul had liked his people's stories of the gods, even if he had stopped believing in Ragnarok. Or perhaps believed it had already happened, he'd seemed to change his mind about it on a regular basis. But Jokul had told all sorts of stories about Loki, trickster of the Aesir. Times when Loki's cleverness had gotten him (into and) out of trouble.

Jack couldn't imagine more trouble than this. The Winter Court, a few Unseleighe eager to play with him, and he had nothing. A little frost, a few cheer inducing snowflakes, no clothes- and he couldn't lie, either.

"My apologies," he said. Apologizing would cost him nothing. It wasn't like he was much concerned about his pride. Pride could hang, he wanted to live.

The Knight smiled, an expression so beautiful Jack felt a brief flutter in his stomach. Attraction, he realized. He hadn't... Huh. So that was what lust was.

He thought the Knight looked briefly confused, but the expression was gone before he could be certain.

"And what is your Name?" the Knight asked.

Okay, time to lie with the truth. "I cannot tell you," Jack said. "I am not certain what it is." True, all of it. He couldn't tell them- they'd use it to control him. And he wasn't certain what it was, because Jackson Overland might not be it. Jack Frost wasn't it. A combination might not be it.

He _suspected_ , but he didn't _know_.

The Knight scowled, but didn't go after Jack to hit him again. Instead, he stepped back up onto the dais, and sat down on his chair.

So, what did that mean?

Skirts rustled, and the Snow Queen stepped down and knelt beside Jack.

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unseleighe are bad news. Just saying.


	7. Panic

"So tired," she murmured, and brushed a hand over his cheek. Her hand was warm, he noted, especially on his cold skin. "So alone. Left adrift by those who should guide you..."

Jack shuddered, and leaned into her touch. He was... He was alone, and tired, and didn't know what he should do. Jokul- Jokul had told him, but it was only what he'd _believed_ , not what he'd _known_ , and... No. Jack pulled away, less than an inch, and closed his eyes.

"Hush," the Snow Queen said, as if she'd heard his thoughts. Maybe she had. Maybe Unseleighe could do that. "Come to me, my own... Let me help you."

She brushed her lips over his forehead, both eyelids, the tip of his nose. His skin tingled where she touched him. It was tempting, so very tempting. Jack clutched his staff in one hand, and whimpered.

"Fear not this night," the Snow Queen whispered. "You will not go astray. You will come home. Home to me."

Then she kissed him, mouth to mouth. It wasn't the slobbering affair he'd seen humans do, mouthing at each other as if trying to _eat_ their partner's face, but chaste, almost innocent in its way, and when she pulled back Jack followed, wanting more. Needing more.

He opened his eyes, and nearly flinched. She was so beautiful. Perfect. Humans were pale, flawed imitations of her, so easily broken and so quick to wear out. There were always more of them, after all, they bred like dogs. They were charming like dogs, too, easy to train and so amusing, but you could only keep one or two, not hundreds. That was simply... unreasonable. Cruel, even.

The Snow Queen smiled, and stroked his cheek. So gentle, so warm, so loving. "There, you see? Come, Jack, join me. We should talk."

"...Talk?" Jack blinked, and frowned. "Talk?"

"About your duties in my court, my own." The Snow Queen stood up, and held her hand out for him to take.

In her... court? Duties? Jack reached up, and then hesitated. That wasn't... That wasn't right. Was it?

Of course it was. Of course he wanted to belong to her court. To sit, curled up by her feet, her beloved... what?

Pet?

Jack breathed in sharply through his nose, and slapped her hand away. " _No_."

She was stronger than she looked. She held him pinned down by his neck with only thumb and forefinger.

"Jack," she said. "Jack Frost. You disappoint me, child." She traced the line of his jaw with her other hand, until her fingernails rested against his throat. They were very long, and very sharp. "Can you not see, my own? Can you not understand? You belong to me, by your nature and your heart. You are Winter, restful, merciful. As are we all."

She smiled. It was a beautiful smile, she had perfect teeth, but they were fangs. Like a wolf's.

"I'm not like you," he rasped. "I'm not a _monster_."

The Snow Queen frowned, then lifted him by the neck and slammed him down against the floor. He fell unconscious by the third such blow.

* * *

They threw him in a cell, stripped even of his small clothes, and without his staff. Jack groped his way more or less upright, and leaned to the side against the back wall. It was cold, and after a few minutes, the cold _hurt_. It felt almost like being human again.

The entire cell was made out of ice, except the door. That was made out of what looked like some kind of metal, though not iron. If he remembered correctly, iron was lethal to both types of Sidhe, and messed some other kinds of spirits up pretty badly too. Not him, he was lucky that way. The door was probably copper, or brass, over wood.

Jack considered, a moment, in pitting his strength against the door- but he wasn't that strong. A little stronger than when he'd been alive as a human, but that was because he had been taught to fight. There was a difference between throwing a punch that would hurt, and tearing a metal door off its hinges. He could do the one, but the other wasn't even remotely possible.

It was impossible to tell time in the cell. There were no windows, and there was a steady light source inside the cell. It wasn't a candle flame, or an oil lamp; it didn't flicker or waver. It was simply a glowing orb, faintly blue, that hung in the middle of the room several feet above his head. He didn't even think there was a cord keeping it from falling. Some sort of magic?

He really wished he'd read more of Jokul's book before Pitch Black stole it.

Counting his breaths, or his heartbeats, weren't an option, either. He couldn't be sure they were at a consistent pace; even when he was calm he'd breathe faster or slower, or his heart would be faster or slower, often for no reason at all. He hadn't noticed any reasons for such an inconsistency, not the season or his state of being, and after a while he'd gotten used to it. It just wasn't very helpful at times like these.

The door opened, after he'd run the gamut of panicked, bored, angry, bored, giving in and trying to break down the door, and settling finally on bored. When it swung inwards, he folded his hands in front of his crotch, but otherwise refused to react.

The Snow Queen, and her King, walked in.

The door closed behind them.

Jack backed up against the wall, despite himself. He wanted to show no fear. He wanted to remain stoic, enduring all the tortures with quiet dignity. What he wanted didn't matter.

Anyone and everyone broke under torture, screamed, begged, wept, and prayed for death. He shook, terrified, not quite able to imagine what sort of pain they would be able to cause him. The Queen and King were the oldest of the Winter Spirits; they'd had a long time to _practice_.

"You should be calm," the Queen said, and smiled. "Are you willing to be more reasonable?"

Jack said something Ma would've washed his mouth out with soap out for. The Queen didn't even blink. Maybe she got told what she could do with a three week dead fish all the time.

"Please, Jack. Listen to me. You, you are _special_. In my court you would be valued as no other save my King. Why, you would be made King yourself, junior, but no less beloved."

What? Jack looked over at the King, who smiled and nodded.

"That makes no sense."

The Queen stepped forward. "How often do you hear of winter bearing children?"

Outside of certain kinds of owls...

She nodded, and held her hands out to him. "Winter is death. Winter is sterile. And yet. Winter is the womb of new life, for Spring. If not for winter snows, so many plants would be unable to rest and grow. We are what ensures the strong survive, and the weak pass away peacefully in the cold. When our snows melt, it encourages the rot of last seasons' leaves, the renewal of the soil, the water that grows the new plants. The Womb of Winter."

Jack forgot himself, and pressed his hands back against the wall, leaving himself exposed. He didn't care. He'd seen that happen before, for himself. Hell, there was always something of a baby boom after winter, among humans- what else were you going to do during the long nights? Some predatory animals even arranged to have their babies in winter, to take advantage of all the cold kills.

"What does that have to do with anything?" he asked.

The Snow Queen's smile was gentle, loving, and going to show up in his nightmares for the rest of his _life_ , he just knew it. "Most of my court belongs to the Killing Winter. But some... Such as my King... Well, my King is the Womb of Winter." She gave him a fond look. "He is the only one in my court who could get me with child." She looked at Jack. "And you."

"I could... get you..."

"That, too."

Jack blinked. "I'm _male_."

"And formally human- a pity, it would be much less painful if you were Sidhe as my King. Tell me, Jack, have you defecated since becoming a spirit?" The Queen tilted her head to the side.

Had he- Jack spluttered, eyes bulging, twitching faintly. Who _asked_ that sort of question? _Why_?

And why was he only just now realizing that... no. He hadn't.

"Some animals, such as birds, release their waste in purely liquid form," the Queen informed him. "Spirits are the same. Even if most male spirits cannot carry. It is something very rare, a gift held only by those of Winter. Such as my King... and yourself."

Oh. God. What?

"No," Jack croaked. "No. Go to _Hell_."

He- he _couldn't_ \- even if he could he _wouldn't_ , not with _them_ , monsters, it'd be worse than copulating with _animals_ \- **_no_**.

Queen and King looked furious, and then, strangely, the King began to smile. He turned and rested a hand on his Queen's shoulder, and nodded his head when she looked at him. The Queen smiled back.

"We will leave you to think on our offer, Jack," she said. "Food and drink will be brought to you. Have no fear; there will be nothing that can harm you. You are of no use to us dead."

The door opened, and they left. Jack sank down until he was sitting on the floor, trembling.

Oh, God. What the Queen had... implied... Oh, God. Was that... Was it even possible? Why would it be possible? Why would- he was _male_ , damn it, he- not _possible_ -

He curled up, wrapped his arms around his knees and pressed his face against them. He might have cried a little. Or a lot.

At least he didn't howl with terror. Just sobbed madly.

You could only be scared for so long, though. Jack calmed down, wiped his cheeks with the heel of one hand, and looked up.

A tray, made out of (of course) ice, had been set in the middle of the cell. There were plates of food, a pitcher filled with liquid, and an empty, upside down cup.

Someone had come in, and then out, while he'd been crying.

Or maybe not. Maybe the Snow Queen had used her powers- whatever they were- to move the food to his cell without opening the door.

He shuddered, and curled up into a tighter ball. He _was_ hungry, but. It could be poisoned. Or drugged. Or-

What had she said, that there wouldn't be anything that'd harm him in it? They wanted him alive (and it was worse than fear, what he felt) and poison wouldn't help them with that.

So. Food. Drink. Locked naked in a cell, his captor having all but stated he'd be raped and- do _not_ think about it, Jack. Just don't. Panic later. He needed to eat and drink, or he'd weaken, and then there'd be no way to escape.

He uncurled, and forced himself away from the wall. The food looked... cold. Good, but cold. Only to be expected, he supposed, and poured himself a glass of what looked like ale. He took a careful sip, and whistled. Not ale, mead. That stuff had one heck of a kick.

There was a salad, made up of things that could still be found in winter; tough, coarse bread that made the barley bread Jokul had served seem like the finest loaves; cabbage soup boiled transparent; a salad made up of what looked like cattail roots, shavings of a green needle tree's inner bark, pine nuts, juniper berries, and spicebush leaves; and a scrawny, roasted rabbit, jointed and covered in some kind of thin sauce.

Jack ate everything but the rabbit, and drank half a cup of mead. He considered the rabbit, but... No. Going without meat this long hadn't killed him. And there was something sad about the dead animal, skinned and missing its head and feet.

His full stomach made him sleepy. He staggered back to lean against the wall, it didn't matter which one, and drew his knees up to his chest. He had to think of some way to escape. He couldn't- what they wanted- everything in him rebelled at the very _idea_.

Strange. He couldn't seem to get too upset about it, now.

He felt warm.

Warm was, it was nice. Good. He didn't get to feel warm very often. Always- always so cold.

Why did he have to be so cold?

"Hush," someone, a voice, a female voice, beautiful voice. "Hush now, my own. Come. Lie down. All will be well. We will take care of you."

Jack sobbed when the voice touched him, tiny, perfect hands, on his gross, ugly shoulders. The hands, the beautiful hands, the warm hands, so warm, they picked him up and urged him forward and he went, he went, he had to follow the hands. They urged him down, down, onto something soft, and then there were more hands, warm and gentle and so good, so perfect.

They moved, over him, touching him, over his shoulders and arms and down his chest and rubbed at his nipples. They rubbed hard there, it hurt a little, and Jack turned his head away. He didn't, he didn't have goosebumps, there was no puckered flesh to sooth. Why were they touching there?

Someone muttered, he couldn't understand what they said but it was beautiful, liquid and filled his ears and he wanted more, needed to hear more. He pawed at- fabric, solid, leg- and moaned.

"Never fear," the voice said. "We will take care of you."

The hands moved lower, tickled his stomach and then lower still, and- what were they doing? Why were the hands touching him there? He didn't- he hadn't ever. It wasn't in him.

They were touching him.

Jack moaned again, in protest. The beautiful hands, the warm hands, but no, no, he didn't want. He didn't want, never wanted. He didn't.

He moved, restlessly, hands and feet shifting against the fabric beneath him. Some kind of fur, thick and soft, and he relaxed at the feeling on his palms. Soft fur. Nice fur. The hands moved, two staying down and two coming up to pet his hair, his forehead, his cheeks. That was better. Not good, not all the way good, because there were still hands down there, but they all weren't down there.

It was better.

"What will it take to catch your interest, my own? I wish not my King to have all the fun. I wish children, my own, for my stomach to swell with your seed. What is it you desire?"

Lips, lips against his, demanding and wet and no. No, that wasn't- he turned his head and closed his eyes. Not happening. This wasn't happening.

Nails raked down his chest, and he yelled in shock, in pain. What? What was that? Why- why? Why did the hands do that?

"Is it pain?" the voice demanded. "Is that what will wake your body? You are a Womb! You _will_ wake mine!"

Jack grunted a protest, and turned his head from side to side. Why were the hands doing this? Why were they hurting? Why weren't they petting?

Hands spread his thighs, and then fingers were- _what were they **doing**_?

Jack sucked in a breath and screamed, and thrashed, and they held him down. Impossibly strong. Im-

" _LET ME GO_!"

The Snow Queen snarled, her lovely face twisted and ugly. "If you will not give me children, my King will give them unto you!"

Jack snarled, and managed to twist and bring his foot up and ow his leg hurt, if he drew it up any further he'd be looking at a dislocation, and then kicked his heel into the King's chin.

A human would have gotten a broken jaw. The King merely reeled back, and more importantly, _stopped touching him_.

The Queen howled, and leaned in close. "Now you listen to me-"

Jack bit her.

On the _throat_.

She screamed, and hit him with both hands, but he held on like a starving dog. It was no love bite; there was blood in his mouth, thick and sour and faintly gritty. He tightened his grip, flesh giving beneath his teeth, and then the Queen pulled away.

Blood sprayed over his face, his chest, and she made a horrified gurgling sound.

Jack spat shreds of flesh to the side, and scrambled up and off the fur. Bear, he noted absently. Not that it mattered.

The Queen clutched her throat, but it didn't do any good. Blood, black and silver, pulsed from the wound in her neck, over her hands and down her chest and arms. Apparently he'd bitten down on one of the big veins.

Jack gagged, and spat. It didn't get much of the blood out of his mouth; it clung to whatever it touched, like oil. Despite his best efforts, he swallowed some, and it was so cold it burned on the way down.

The King sat up, and stared at his Queen in clear horror. The expression he turned on Jack promised worse than pain, than death, but then he turned away and lifted his Queen in his arms. She went limp seconds later, her eyes frosted over and the tip of her tongue visible between her lips.

In death, she wasn't beautiful. She was ugly, a real hag, all bones and skin stretched over them, sagging breasts and ragged wisps of hair.

Jack shuddered, and pressed back into a corner. He'd killed the Snow Queen. Oh, God, he'd killed the Snow Queen. He'd _torn her throat out_ , like an _animal_.

He hyperventilated, and then passed out.

He dreamed, or it felt like a dream. He stood in a garden, warm and scented with the flowers of spring. He stood beside a great tree, that was so tall it seemed to hold up the roof of the- cave? He was in a cave? Not quite, he realized; to one side the rock walls and ceiling opened up, revealing a vivid blue sky and the occasional cloud. Sunlight, like liquid gold, poured in over the grass, the flowers, the oddly colored water that looked like nothing so much as some kind of paint.

He wore odd clothing; he couldn't make it out, much, but he was sure there was a cloak, and he had the hood down. The Wind brushed by him, making the cloak flutter, ruffled his braids.

He turned, and looked up at- someone. He couldn't make much out of them, other than they were taller, and smiling fondly- like Pa had smiled at Ma, sometimes- and they had the most vivid green eyes he'd ever seen.

And then he woke up.

And cried, because he knew he'd seen a slice of Heaven. He'd seen an Angel. And having murdered, he would never be granted access.

So he cried, for what had been done, and what he had lost.

He was still crying when they came for him, with knives and shards of ice, and rage.


	8. Escape

There was a hallucination in his cell.

Jack smiled at her, the pretty little lady dressed in long white hair and purple velvet. She was the nicest hallucination he'd seen in- in a long time, a very long time. Since before he'd become accustomed to the drugs and they stopped working on him, actually. Some of those hallucinations had been nice, memories of his family, his human life.

There had been a brief period of dementia, where he'd feared the Unseleighe could reach through his memories and get at his family, so he'd forced himself to stop thinking about them. Because he couldn't let the Snow Queen get his sister, his mother, his father, his little brother. He just _couldn't_.

That was over, now. He'd broken, shattered, and pieced himself back together regardless of what was done to him. They left him alone now. Ever since he'd started laughing at the torture, bright and gleeful and wrong.

Jack smiled at the pretty little lady, and wondered if he was going insane again. Or if he'd ever stopped being insane.

Semantics.

"Jack Frost," she said, and smiled back. Her teeth were like a cat's, very sharp and with what looked like saber teeth, though they fit in her mouth and didn't poke out over her lips at all. "I wondered what you'd look like."

Jack looked down at himself. There was surprisingly little blood, and what there was, wasn't his. Not this week. He wasn't even as scrawny as he should be, as they still fed him. Drugged him, but the herbs no longer worked. He was naked as the day he'd been born, and even with his pale skin, the white scars showed clearly. Not too many of those; the Unseleighe thought mere physical torment to be, well, child's play.

Literally.

"You were expecting someone taller?" he asked.

She laughed, and her eyes actually twinkled. Very lovely eyes, deep, deep purple, the kind of color you could only get in the Northern Lights when everything was just right. The same color as her dress, actually. "Someone more broken. But you are stronger than I expected."

He flexed his fingers, and then held up one hand. The claws, sharp and semi-retractable, glittered in the witch light. "Not that strong."

They had changed him, slowly but surely. With every mouthful of blood he'd accidentally swallowed, every time he'd taken one of the Snow Queen's lives, he'd changed. He wasn't Sidhe, not even close, but he wasn't human any more, either. He even had fangs, though nothing at all like the lady's, or a vampire's. Just eyeteeth, a little longer, a little sharper, than the norm.

Made it easier to tear that bitch's throat out.

"Ice elves are strong," the lady said, and shrugged. "That isn't why I'm here. A Knight of Summer has arrived. Shortly, he will slaughter everyone."

"A Knight of Summer?" Jack asked. He'd been in the cell for so long... he had almost forgotten what summer even was. Warm... right?

"One of them. Winter and Summer have different ideas of what makes a proper court. Summer is ruled by their King, and his Queen, and then those worth of upholding their ideals and the Court's honor become the knights. Well," she said. "That's the Lawful Seleighe Sidhe. And the Lawful Unseleighe Sidhe are much the same."

Lawful? He could feel his understanding slip from between his fingers like water. "I don't..."

"There are two courts in Winter," she told him. "The Lawful, who hold to their bargains, do not kill indiscriminately, and hold to the rules of appropriate conduct, and the Unlawful, who you were captured by." The lady looked around the cell, and wrinkled her nose. "The Unlawful cheat even in death- surely you've noticed that however many times you kill the Snow Queen, she is alive the next morning?"

And crazier. Oh, yes, he'd noticed. "Yes."

"Nine by nine lives. Only her." She tilted her head. "Thankfully. I can't imagine the trouble if the Winter General kept coming back, too."

Bad.

"Yes," she agreed, even though he hadn't said anything. "So. You were captured by the Unlawful Unseleighe, and they finally overstepped their bounds. The Lawful Seleighe, their sworn enemy, have sent a Knight. That Knight will kill everyone here, even you."

He didn't want to die. Even after everything that had happened, he didn't want to die.

"Therefore," she said, "you cannot be here. You're going to escape, Jack."

"Escape?" he rasped. He'd tried before. He'd even gotten out of the cell a few times. "I can't escape. They'll catch me."

"I won't let them," she promised him. "I have a guide for you, who can get you safely to the Mortal Realms. She made a deal with me," she said, and smiled. It was bright and happy, and Jack swayed towards her. He could taste her- her joy. Bright and bubbling and she'd pulled the _best_ trick. He remembered feeling like that, once.

"I don't have my staff," he told her.

The lady reached behind her, and she was tiny, and sitting down, how had she hidden his staff behind her? But she had. She pulled it around, and held it out. "You mean this?"

"My staff!" The moment he touched it, frost curled around the wood, and he knew, he _knew_ this wasn't a hallucination. The staff- he had a sudden flash of insight. It was more than just a channel for his powers, it helped to ground him, keep his powerful emotions from overwhelming his mind and taking over his magic and creating killer storms- wasn't something he'd ever imagined.

"Yes. And clothing, and that guide. But we haven't much time."

Clothing? Oh, right. He'd gone naked for so long... but it would be good to cover up. Better than good. "I don't- I can't be seen," he said, suddenly panicked. "I'm..." Filthy.

"Oh, Jack," she murmured, and shook her head. "Let's get you cleaned up."

Somehow, she did. The lady found a pitcher of water and soft cloth, and he was able to at least wipe off the grime that had accumulated. He was able to take a detailed inventory of his scars- several deep slashes on his ribs and chest, where the Snow Queen had clawed him, and long gouges starting at his hipbones and going all the way down his thighs to his knees. That had been the King's doing, whenever Jack frustrated his attempts to- to rape him.

They hadn't done that. Somehow, he'd managed to keep them from doing that.

Everything else...

He shuddered, and almost jumped out of his skin when he felt something tug at his hair.

"Calm down," the lady said. "I'm just neatening you up. Good thing I have magic, there's no way to untangle it otherwise."

She braided his hair into a thick rope, which reached just below his shoulder blades, almost to mid-back, except for three skinny braids at each temple. They tucked back behind his ears, and after he'd gotten used to the feeling, he didn't even notice the change. His hair was neat, out of the way, everything was good.

"And now the clothing," she said, and somehow produced strange underclothes- tight flannel trousers that covered him only from hip to knee- that she called underwear. Then the trousers, which were an exact double to his original pair of pants that he'd died in, down to a slightly worn spot on the left knee. "They will wear better than your first pair," she promised. "Moon deer leather can stop swords without being marked."

Well, alright then.

He was given a light, billowy, white shirt that was made out of some kind of linen, finer than anything he'd seen before, and over that a sleeveless shirt in dark gray, satin he thought. It was good, all good, but he still felt... exposed.

Odd. Until he'd realized he was actually going to escape, he hadn't thought anything of being seen. Now the very thought was horrible.

"And the final piece," she said, and draped a cloak around his shoulders. It was in many shades of gray, ranging from chalk to slate, and it covered him entirely down to his ankles. When he pulled the hood up, it draped over his face, leaving only his mouth and chin visible.

He actually sighed in relief, and held his staff loosely in one hand. "You mentioned a guide?" He paused, and looked the lady over. "Are you the guide?"

"Hardly. I'm the rear guard." She reached into a belt pouch- she had belt pouches? He hadn't even realized- and pulled out- a fairy?

It was a tiny little thing, smaller than his closed fist and covered with blue-green feathers. It had a long, narrow beak, delicate little wings like a dragonfly, and a cross expression on its little face.

"This is a tooth fairy," the lady said, and held it up. "Little one, this is the one I wish you to guide. Get him back to the mortal realm, and with all haste."

Jack blinked at the little thing, and it turned and blinked back at him. "A what now?" he asked.

"A tooth fairy- no doubt she'll explain later, as there isn't any time now. Come."

The fairy fluttered her wings, and then hovered in the air in front of Jack. He held one hand out, palm up, for her to set down on. "You needn't fly," he said. "I can carry you. You can simply point the direction."

The fairy scowled, but did accept his offer.

The lady cleared her throat. She stood by the door- the closed door. "It's locked," Jack told her. "How are we...?"

She raised one eyebrow, and then turned and tore the door from its hinges.

"Uh. Okay. That works."

"It does." She gestured him into the hall, and with a shudder, he went.

Somewhere in the distance he could hear shouting. He could _feel_ more, anger and fear faintly, and a terrible sort of joy and pleasure, but overwhelming it all was a righteous fury and the- the _satisfaction_ of doing what had to be done, with the regret that it had to be done at all.

He'd never felt feelings before, had he? The herbs, or the blood...?

"Jack. Fairy. You must be off. I can hold the Summer Knight here, when he reaches this far. He will not dare harm me."

"No?" Jack asked. He drew himself up, and blinked when he realized he was a full foot taller than the lady. "You might be able to tear doors off hinges, but Knights are- they're Knights! He'll have a sword, and armor, and- and-"

"And I am the Queen of the Lawful Unseleighe," the lady said. "I am the Winter Lady Maeve." She dropped into a curtsy, and Jack automatically bowed back.

"You, uh, you..."

"Do not thank me," she said softly. "I will not say this was my choice, Jack Frost, because it wasn't, but I would think that had I known of your situation before this, I would have acted without orders. For what you have suffered, you have my most sincere regret."

He did. He could feel it.

He shuddered again, and nodded. "As you say. I should go, then."

"You should. Go fast, and go safe."

The fairy flew up off his hand, and led the way down the hall. Jack hurried to keep up with her; for such a little thing, she could cover ground quite fast. He had to practically run, which made his cloak flare out behind him in a dramatic fashion.

He chuckled, and then jumped and spun in midair. He was escaping! And he was looking good while doing it, too.

The fairy squeaked at him. He could almost make out the sense of her words- high pitched, quite fast, heavily accented, and _English_ , oddly enough- but not quite. Not yet.

"I am coming," he assured her. "But put yourself in my place. I've been captive of these asylum escapees for I don't even know how long. It's lucky I'm not a drooling wreck, myself."

The fairy squeaked that she didn't _care_ , they had to _go_ , now.

Oh, he did understand her.

She flew off, and he ran after her.

She led him through something worse than the Minotaur's maze. There were too many hallways, too many doors, too many staircases and at one point she had him trigger the hidden opening to a tunnel, which at least took them outside. Sort of.

There was a sun in the sky, but it was dark red, the color of freshly spilled blood. Human blood, he corrected himself, remembering the Snow Queen's black and silver blood. The sky was the color of a bruise, sullen purple nearest the sun, darkening to blue-black at the horizon. There was grass, but it was the color of rusted iron, and trees, with bone white trunks and no leaves. There was snow, thin drifts of it lying about where there would be shadows, if the sun had cast a strong enough light for them. It was faintly gritty underfoot, as though mixed with ashes.

Compared to his cell, it was practically paradise.

Come on, the fairy urged. We just have to get through the forest and then we're free.

"Not going to be that easy," Jack said, and concentrated on catching his breath. He wasn't nearly as out of shape as he should have been. He resolved to wonder about it later.

Maybe it was something to do with the claws and demi-fangs.

Of course it wasn't going to be that easy. The fairy stopped flying, and crouched on the crook of his staff. There were monsters waiting. But they couldn't stay here. She had to get back to her work, collecting teeth, and he, well, he was needed. She didn't know by who, but the signs were certain.

"Why do you collect teeth?" Jack asked. "You might as well tell me, I need a few minutes here." To gather his strength, his courage, and defeat the mewling part of him that wanted to crawl back into his cell and painful routine.

The fairy tilted her head, and started talking. About someone named Toothiana, last daughter of a group called the Sisters of Flight, and the oath she'd taken to protect Earth Children. How her powers related to memory, tied into lost baby teeth, and how she'd split herself into what amounted to several hundred daughters, so she could take care of all the children.

But I am too adventurous, the little fairy said. I thought collecting teeth was... boring. And then the Winter Lady caught me. She offered me an adventure, and I agreed.

Jack wheezed a laugh. "Didn't expect this part, did you?"

No one ever expects the little girl to save the day.

"Want to make it even more humiliating for your enemies? You need a name. A cutesy name." Jack grinned at her, and then carefully stroked a finger over her head. "Baby Tooth Fairy- Baby Tooth."

The fairy fluttered her wings, and then broke down into laughter. Yes, she said, when she was understandable again. Baby Tooth. I like it, I like it a lot!

"I'll have to make sure you get more adventures, Baby Tooth," Jack said. "I have a feeling that spending time with you will be _fun_."

I like you too, Jack.

He took a deep breath, and looked at the forest. "No help for it. We've got to get through." He didn't want to die. He had to remember that. He wanted to _live_ , and he couldn't do that here.

He wanted... He wanted Jokul. He wanted to know his mentor had his back. Instead he had his broken little self, and a courageous but tiny tooth fairy.

"Alright Baby Tooth," he said. "Let's move."

They moved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Baby Tooth!
> 
> And she's awesome.
> 
> ... That is all.


	9. Building a Reputation

**Western Front, 1914**

They emerged into hell. Baby Tooth squeaked, and dove for cover in his hood. Jack let her; if he could have, he'd have done the same.

They stood on the side of a shallow hill, and looked out over a nightmare. The ground was churned up, a sea of mud crossed by- his mind couldn't make sense of it all. There were _things_ , everywhere, wood and loops of barbed wire and jagged metal and he didn't even _know_. Bodies. Pieces of bodies. The air felt dry, cold, and he knew that it hadn't been rain or melted snow that made that mud. Not most of it.

The place had been a farmer's field, once, maybe several fields. To either side were lines dug down into the mud, topped with sandbags. Trenches. He didn't... He didn't understand.

And then he did.

He could only watch as men started shouting, and then one side climbed up over the sandbags and started running across the battlefield. The other side started up guns, but they weren't muskets or revolvers. They were- they fired rapidly, without needing to be reloaded. The bullets, there were so many of them. People fell. At least half that fell were dead before they hit the ground. The other half were still alive.

And screaming.

Jack stumbled backward, and fell to the ground. The muddy ground.

He yelled, and all but jumped to his feet. He'd just _touched_ -!

"You see what they do to each other?"

Jack stiffened, and then turned around slowly. He felt Baby Tooth press up against his neck, trembling. "Pitch Black."

The Nightmare King smiled. He looked the way he had when he'd stolen Jokul's book, when he'd given Jack over to the Unlawful Unseleighe. "Indeed. How are you feeling, Jack?"

How was he...? Something exploded behind him, on the field of dead and dying. He thought he saw a hand fly through the air to one side, to land beyond the hill.

He felt himself snap.

Started to giggle.

Doubled over, laughing until tears ran down his cheeks and he'd fallen to his knees. Kept laughing, even though he was sobbing, holding Baby Tooth in both hands to his chest. Hiccupped, caught his breath, and kept going.

He wound down, and looked up at Pitch. "Oh," he said. "I'm just fine."

Pitch Black looked... disturbed. Intrigued, but disturbed. Sort of like he'd just seen a corpse that had died in an unusual way, that turned his stomach, but he just had to keep looking. "Indeed. Shall I tell you what you've missed, while enjoying the Winter Court's hospitality?"

Enjoying? Jack lowered one hand to his staff, and picked it up off the ground. "By all means," he murmured. Baby Tooth shivered against his thumb, her eyes wide. One was purple, the other blue. Pretty.

Pitch Black grinned, and got started. He lingered over the expected parts- the violence of the previous century, the increased divide between those that had money, and those that didn't, and got positively euphoric when he started in on the start of the war, and the current death toll. It hadn't even been a full year.

"They're already calling it the war to end all wars," he said, as gleeful as a child on Christmas morning. "You have no idea what this is doing for me, Jack. The Dark Ages weren't as _tasty_ as this."

Jack stared at him, then twisted and looked out over the battlefield. "You enjoy this."

"There's something _wonderful_ about humans. They're so eager to _destroy_ each other."

Jack urged Baby Tooth back onto his shoulder, and stood up. "You _enjoy_ this."

The Nightmare King stopped rhapsodising, and stared at Jack. "Of course I do. There's no wonder in war, no dreams, no memories anyone wishes to recall, and more importantly, no _hope_."

The ice blade slashed his cheek open to the bone.

Jack whooped, and twisted on one foot to bring the blade back down. Pitch Black caught it on his own sword, made of shadows somehow turned solid, but he staggered back. His blood, Jack noticed, was dark blue. Not human then. He wasn't surprised.

"Go away," Jack told him. "Go away before I kill you."

The Nightmare King's eyes widened. "You cannot kill fear!"

"I can try. It'll probably be fun." Act crazy, and the Unseleighe had left him alone. Act crazy, and the Unseleighe had been _afraid_. "Don't you want to play, Pitch? I want to play." Jack grinned, twisted and overly bright. " _With your spleen_."

Three seconds, three heartbeats, and then Pitch Black was gone into the shadows as if he'd never been. Not too far, Jack supposed. There was too much fear in this place for him to be gone for good.

Baby Tooth fluttered out from his hood, and hovered in front of him. What did they do now? This was horrible. They had to do _something_.

"You should go back to your mother. I have no idea how long you've been gone, but she probably would like to see you. I have an idea. I'll be fine alone."

Can I see you again? Later?

"Absolutely. Look me up whenever you want an adventure."

Baby Tooth chirped an affirmative, and then vanished in a blur of motion. Jack smiled, and watched until she was out of sight. Then he turned and looked over the battlefield.

"Across several countries," he said, and sighed. "Oh, well."

Then he lifted his staff, and called the Wind. Snow would soften the horrific edges. Snow touched with his cheer inducing magic would hopefully help the poor bastards fighting their war. It wasn't enough, but it was the most, the only thing, he could do.

* * *

**Scottish Isles, 1929**

"Up the airy mountain, down the rushy glen, we daren't go a-hunting, for fear of little men," Jack crooned. The five red caps cowered back against the rock wall, stone knives drawn and diminutive faces set in expressions of defiance.

Jack's eyes glittered under the hood. He'd learnt, oh yes he'd learnt, all about acting mad. For some reason, no one wanted to fight a madman. Something about how a madman didn't care about injuries, only about tearing his enemy apart. Something about how a madman was so much worse than an evil man, or a good man, for what he'd do to you. Something about how a madman laughed and laughed and laughed while he killed you.

Jack played a very good madman. Sometimes he was sure he wasn't playing at all.

"You killed those people," he said. "Now I'm afraid I have to kill you. Fair is fair, after all."

The red caps tried to merge with the rock, and when that didn't happen, lifted their knives in a futile gesture.

In a fit of whimsy, he left the frozen corpses in a noble's garden. He wondered if the humans would see them, and what they'd think.

He laughed, and called the Wind. He wanted to get back to America. There was a new dance he wanted to learn.

* * *

**Germany, 1945**

"I think they'd prefer these," Jack told the cluster of fairies. He held out a tin of chocolates. "I know, I know, bad for their teeth... But they need what comfort they can get."

After a moment, they all nodded, and each scooped up a chocolate drop. They then fluttered over the fence, into the concentration camp. Poor children.

A passing guard came too close, and Jack tapped the man with his staff, marked him. The guard never noticed. "Sie werden heute Nacht sterben, mein Freund," Jack told him. No one at this camp seemed able to stay warm throughout the night, they kept dying of hypothermia. Strangely, the Jews, without any blankets or fires, didn't suffer so much as a single chill blain.

He'd never hated his own people more.

* * *

**Burgess, Pennsylvania, 1968  
Good Friday**

Jack laughed, and tossed a few more snowballs into the fray. It was already turning out to be one of the best snowball fights in the decade, with adults getting into the action and everything. Children ran around the park, somehow never running out of ammo, and the adults had pooled their resources to build a fort. Not that it helped them, with an unseen attacker floating behind and pelting anyone not laughing.

He landed, so to speak, on top of a snow drift. His bare feet didn't make so much as a dent in the surface. Jack Frost, no one believed in him, he didn't even leave tracks. So sad.

A child ran through him, and he cackled at the pain.

He readied another snowball, and then paused. On the other side of the park. There was a flicker of movement, something that tore at his hard-won instincts. Jack jumped back into the air and looked closer.

A spirit. A physical one, that looked almost human, but for a wild mane and lashing lion's tail.

"Huldra," Jack snarled, and the bitch proved it by hearing him and looking right at him.

She gasped, then turned and ran.

He followed.

The Huldra was fast, and managed to reach the forest before Jack caught her. He grabbed her by one shoulder, and then flung her sideways into an old oak tree. He landed several feet away, and pointed his staff at her.

"I wondered when you'd be back," he said quietly. Quiet was scarier than loud. Quiet was his second best weapon.

His absolute _best_ weapon was his appearance. The heavy cloak covered him from head to toe, especially when he kept the hood up to cover his face. The Huldra could see his mouth- and the itty-bitty fangs- and his hands- with the not so itty-bitty claws- and his feet, but nothing else.

"I don't know what you mean," she whispered, and huddled against the tree.

Jack looked closer, and frowned. Oh, this was a different one. "My apologies," he said, and for some reason that made her quake with terror. "I mistook you for someone else. But what were you doing watching the snowball fight?"

The Huldra sniffled. She looked very young, with coppery hair tied back in a messy tail, large golden eyes, and full lips that quivered as though she was about to burst into tears. Considering how he'd acted, she just might. She was dressed better than the other Huldra Jack had seen, though a bit old fashioned. "I was watching Thomas."

"Thomas?"

"Thomas Bennett." She stopped shaking when he didn't slam her back against the tree, or noticeably breathe for that matter. "He's... He's quite handsome, you know." She reached up, and brushed at her hair.

"You have a crush on him," Jack said, amused despite himself. "Are you going to bring him home?"

"No! Oh, no, I want to stay with him. I- I want to get married in a church."

If she got married in a church, she'd become human- though still preternaturally strong, if Jack remembered his legends right. Former Huldra were capable of straightening white-hot, iron horseshoes barehanded, without injury.

"Have you met him before?" Jack asked. The Huldra shook her head. "Alright. Why don't I help you? Humans are funny, you know, and they can get a bit odd about people if they don't act a certain way."

"You would help me?"

"Of course. You mean Thomas Bennett no harm, after all."

The Huldra sniffled, and nodded. "I would like your help. I would owe you greatly, Frost."

Jack waved one hand. "Come. You'll need new clothes. I'll explain money on the way."

The young Huldra was easy enough to teach, but then they had odd magic. She could just as easily have picked up information just by standing on a street corner, listening to the city- or something. Jack didn't know how they worked, beyond the obvious. Most Huldra were more interested in stealing a man away as a sex slave than marrying one and getting a soul.

By evening, the young Huldra looked like a young lady, her tail hidden under her ankle length skirts. She looked demure, somewhat shy, but then Thomas Bennett seemed to prefer such women. Jack approved, kept an eye on things until she'd bumped into her chosen man, and then took off for the forest to let things go on their natural course.

Of course, that was when he ran into the _other_ Huldra.

She tore into him with claws and fangs, and only a hasty twist kept her from tearing open his throat. Jack snarled, and slammed the butt of his staff into her ribs. He couldn't put much force into it, at that angle, but it was enough for her to back off for all of three seconds.

Good enough. He turned and swept the staff the other way, the crook hooking her ankles and pulling her feet out right from under her.

She was fast. Very fast. She hit the ground, twisted, and was back up on her feet.

"Didn't I talk with you already?" Jack asked, and held his staff at the ready. "Something about you heading off to your underworld home or I'd tear you limb from limb?"

The Huldra snarled. "You have no power to order me about. I shall kill _you_ , and eat your heart!"

"Friendly." Jack leapt into the air, twisted, and landed behind her. She had been expecting that, and landed a punch to his chest that sent him flying backwards into a tree. He bounced off, ducked a second blow, and clawed her flank with one hand.

The Huldra screeched, and spun to face him. He was already gone, ducking around to her back.

He got hold of her neck, and slammed her forehead first into another tree. Her furious yowl cut off when he did it a second time.

She thrust her elbow backwards, and caught him a glancing blow to the stomach. Jack grunted, and slammed her into the tree a third time.

The Huldra went limp. Jack snarled, and tossed her to one side.

She jumped up onto her feet, clawed hands at the ready.

The snowball caught her square on the nose.

Huldra didn't laugh; it wasn't in them unless and until they received a soul. But it did give her pause. Jack took full advantage, shoved her up against _another_ tree, and then iced her in place. The Huldra screeched, and started struggling against her bonds.

"No power, hm?" Jack asked, and smiled faintly. "You won't get out of that until thaw at the earliest," he told her.

"You're naught but an ice elf!" she howled. "You cannot _do_ this!"

"Because I'm all about rules." Jack paced back and forth, spinning his staff absently around his hands. "Now, I could kill you. The way things are, it'd be easy. But I'd rather you did something for me. Take a warning back to your people. If anyone wants souls, I will absolutely and indeed, enthusiastically help them attract husbands. Or wives, I suppose, if any Huldrekall want the same deal. But no sex slaves. That, I will kill over."

The Huldra spat at his feet. "Kill me, then."

"No," Jack said, and stared up at the sky. "No, I think I'll simply show you what you face. Only fair that you have all the information at hand, hm?"

He chuckled, and gave the Wind a mental poke. Snow?

The Wind rustled the tree branches. Snow.

_Lots_ of snow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically this is an epilogue but not really? One more chapter, epilogue, surprise POV. Or not so surprise. We shall see.
> 
> So, World War 1, first Christmas, there was a great deal of fraternization between the two armies. Even before Christmas. They'd arrange temporary cease fires so people could go out and collect their dead, bum ciggaretts off each other, and generally just be people stuck in a shitty situation all together. The brass did NOT like it, and that first Christmas was, in fact, the only one with that truce. I'm sure everyone's heard the story, though, about how on Christmas day the truce was arranged, some football was played (soccer for us Yanks and Canuks, I think), and cheer was the watchword.
> 
> I don't know the origin of garden gnomes, but they are creepy as fuck. At the same time, I really doubt the World War 2 concentration camps had a cranky demi-German winter spirit taking out the Nazi guards via hypothermia... but that's a pity, because it wouldn't have happened to nicer people. (The soldiers fighting in the trenches- they were people. The soldiers guarding the concentration camps, that KNEW what was going on and either didn't care or ENJOYED IT...)
> 
> Huldra are a version of wood-wife. They come from the Germanic areas- not quite into Russia, from my research, but close. Stories differ- some say that if a huldra gets married in a church, she becomes human, though she keeps her supernatural strength. Some others say she can't cross the church threshhold. Yet OTHERS say their only interest in men is as sex slaves. A Huldrekall is a male Huldra.


	10. Bunnymund

**Easter Sunday, 1968  
Burgess, Pennsylvania**

E. Aster Bunnymund met Jack Frost once, and only once.

Years on, he still plays the meeting over and over in his memory, undecided how he feels about it.

He'd been setting out googies for the ankle biters, had covered the few parts of South America that believed, only to pop out of his tunnel somewhere in Pennsylvania to a snowstorm. A middle-of-January nightmare whiteout that'd leave snow knee high and cancel all egg hunts for the Monday. He stretched his senses out, and felt not only the wicked air pressure that'd insure the storm would keep on with its ferocity, but the magic fueling it, too.

Unfamiliar magic. He knew Mother Nature, he knew the nasty little winter sprites with their icicle teeth and grasping fingers, he knew the flavors of magic that belonged to former gods and current myths.

Aster growled, and waved his googies back into the tunnel. He wouldn't be able to set out eggs in this part of the world, not this year- hell, it was entirely possible that the storm covered a good sized chunk of the US and Canada. Sure, he could always put out more eggs over in Europe and Australia, but it still meant there would be hundreds of thousands of children going without their googies this year.

He didn't like that. He did not like that at all.

It wouldn't take long to find the bastard responsible for the storm, and give them a piece of his mind. Maybe a fist to the face depending on how aggravating they were.

He stalked through the forest, following that thin trail of magic. If circumstances were different, he might even have admired the delicate strands. Magic wasn't exactly something that could be seen or felt; it glowed to the mind's eye, and appeared differently depending on the user. This, these strands of magic, appeared frail, like the delicate wisps of frost on a windowpane, but when Aster brushed against them with his own energy, they held together as strong as a glacier.

An artist had crafted this spell, someone with a delicate touch and a mind for detail.

Pity they'd chosen to use their powers to mess with his one, special day.

He was all but hissing when he came to the lakeshore. Pretty enough place, he supposed, though currently there wasn't much he could see of it. The whiteout conditions pretty much meant he could see about as far as his arm, and not much beyond.

"Alright," he muttered. The spell traces led him here... If he was right, the source of the spell was somewhere ahead, probably above the lake center. "Oi!" he hollered, though he could barely hear himself over the wind. "You! What're you think you're doing?"

He didn't get an answer, at least, not a verbal one.

A hard packed snowball hit him in the face. He staggered, suddenly blind from snow in his eyes. Aster felt himself start to tilt, twisted, and got one hand on a tree trunk before he could actually fall. He hit the ground with one knee, but remained upright. Although now he knew that this new sprite wasn't about to play fair.

And then ice secured his hand to the tree trunk, and he couldn't pull free.

He wiped the snow from his eyes, and stared at the bond. Magic ice, he could feel it, and he could pit all the strength in his body against it, and he'd have to uproot the tree before the ice broke.

"What the..."

"There is no way," someone said, "that you could be looking for _me_. A pity."

Aster twisted to look back over his shoulder. He could see, just, an upright figure through the snow. No details, but he thought there was a hooded, pale gray cloak of some kind. Great, a winter version of Pitch Black.

" _You_ ," he said, all but snarling. "In the cloak. What do you think you're _doing_? Let me go!"

The figure moved back, then forward in a rush. "You can see me," it- he, by the voice- said.

"Of course I bleeding well can see you, now let me go! Have you any idea what you've _done_?" Aster tugged his hand, but the ice remained firm. Damn it. "You've wrecked my holiday!"

"Your... holiday?" The cloaked figure leaned forward, and seemed to study Aster's face. It was hard to tell; the hood covered the person's face, shadowed everything but their chin and mouth. The cloak also hid most of the person's physical features; the most Aster could tell was that they were male, bare foot, and carried some sort of staff in one hand.

"Easter!"

"Did I?" The person straightened up, and stepped around until no amount of twisting let Aster see them. "They will still be able to go to Church. Or Chapel, if that is their preference. What does a rabbit have to do with either?"

"It's the egg hunts, you-" Aster cut himself off. Insulting his captor likely wouldn't get him free any faster. "On Easter Monday, the ankle biters go out and find candy eggs. I'm the one that sets them out. Only I _can't_ , because your bleeding _snow_ is in the way."

"Egg hunts? Oh, yes. I've seen them before." The person walked back into sight. "You are responsible for them?"

"Yes."

"That would make you the Easter Bunny." The cloaked figure crouched down again, and once more seemed to study him. "Yes," he murmured. "I suppose you are right. The snow would get in the way, wouldn't it? These egg hunts, they happen every year?"

"Always the Monday after Easter Sunday, yeah," Aster snarked at him. "Now, there's a whole world to take care of, so let me go already."

"No."

What? "What do you _mean_ , no?"

The cloaked figure had been five, six feet away; certainly too far for Aster to reach, stuck as he was. Only he sprang forward, and grabbed Aster behind the ear with one hand, his fingers yanking at the fur there.

"You see me," he said. "You talk to me. You have no idea... None at all, my dear Easter Rabbit, what it is to be _alone_."

His fingers tightened in Aster's fur at the last word, and pulled. Aster went, because he didn't really need a bald spot.

He didn't know? He didn't have any idea? He'd been alone since before humans had _evolved_ , since his entire race had been _killed_ , and this mad snowman thought-

The mad snowman was running his fingers through Aster's fur, as suddenly gentle as he'd been harsh before. Then he shifted his attention, tracing his fingers along one ear, just enough pressure to not tickle, light enough that Aster sighed despite himself.

Oh. Oh no. No.

"No." Aster pulled away, and bared his teeth. There were times he wished he had wolf fangs or something, to be properly intimidating. He wasn't sure if this was one of them, and he _should_ know, because the mad snowman seemed to be _smiling_ at him.

"Just a few minutes?" the snowman asked. He sounded wistful. "Please? I had no idea rabbit fur was so soft."

He wanted to protest- he wasn't a _rabbit_ , he was the Easter Bunny, and a _Pooka_ , and certainly no crazed individual's stuffed toy to cuddle.

But...

"And you'll let me go, after?" he asked, not able to sound half as grudging as he thought he should.

"Yes. Yes, my word on it." The snowman grinned, and reached for Aster's cheek.

Aster let him.

The fingers that carded through his fur were surprisingly warm, considering the weather, barely chilled. They still made Aster shiver, though. The fingers began to wander, over his eyebrows and along his ears, down the back of his head, tracing the lines of his neck and shoulders.

Despite himself, he couldn't help but _feel_. It'd been so long since anyone had touched him like this. Not even touching himself. Not since he'd given up hope for other Pooka survivors. Not since he'd given up on the _idea_ of anyone willing to make with a supposed animal, despite that beneath the fur and the instincts he was as smart as any human, spirit or mortal, with the emotions to match.

He sighed, and tilted his head back, the better to give the snowman access to his collarbones. "Wh-why the storm, mate?"

"Mm? Oh." The snowman leaned forward and brushed his lips over Aster's shoulder. Aster bit down on his lip, so as not to yelp. "It seemed like _fun_."

Then the snowman set his staff aside, and began to card the fingers of both hands through the fur on Aster's belly, and there was no holding his physical reaction back at that.

"Hm..." The snowman grinned at Aster, and almost- _almost_!- touched the tip of his erection. "What's this, then?"

"Never paid attention to farm animals?" Aster asked. He panted for breath, and trembled. "I'd think it obvious."

The snowman just laughed, and grabbed Aster's wrist before he could touch himself. "Oh, no. No, the deal was _I'd_ touch _you_."

It was shock, had to be shock, that made Aster go limp enough for his other hand to get set next to his frozen one, and iced over. "I, you- what?"

"That _was_ the deal. Remember?"

He was on his knees, hands iced to a tree trunk, in the middle of a snowstorm, with a cloaked madman that was currently fondling his tail like he had a _right_ to do it. Aster ground his teeth, and really wished he hadn't just shifted so his legs were further apart.

"Heh." The snowman reached between Aster's legs, and _finally_ touched his erection. "Interesting..."

"Gonna do anything about it, or just- ah!"

Yup. Doing something about it.

Aster bit down on his tongue, and clenched his eyes shut. Oh, that was just- inexpert, he thought, struggling with coherency. Likely hadn't touched anyone like this before. Had a good bit of natural talent, though- "Ah!"

The snowman laughed, a bright and carefree sound, and dragged what felt like a _claw_ over the head of Aster's cock again. Very carefully, didn't even scratch, but the sheer _insinuation_ of danger had Aster throwing his head back and panting. Oh, this was so- it was so- he should stop, make it stop. "Yessss..."

"Enjoying yourself?" the snowman asked. He shifted, letting go of Aster just long enough to lean over Aster's body, the front of his thighs brushing against the back of Aster's, then reaching around and grabbing hold of fur and cock again. Oh yes, definitely claws, the very sharp tips barely kept from scraping over sensitive flesh.

It was over with several more pumps of the snowman's hand, and a quick twist of the wrist. Aster bellowed as he came, and then sagged as every muscle went delightfully limp. It'd been too long since he'd last touched himself, he realized. Something like twenty-five thousand years, maybe a bit more. He should not have been that easy to work up, or get off.

"Interesting," the snowman said. Aster twisted to look back at him over his shoulder, and saw he was studying the semen spread over his fingers.

"And this is a sign of... pleasure?" the snowman asked. He held his hand up, fingers spread, the semen freezing on his claws.

"Yeah," Aster managed. "You've had your few minutes. Let me go."

The snowman recoiled suddenly, and almost staggered to his feet. "Yes. Of course." He bent down and wiped his hand off in the snow, and snatched up his staff.

He tapped the butt of his staff against the ice over Aster's hands, and it shattered. Aster pulled away from the tree and flexed his fingers. He didn't look at the cloaked figure. Why should he? He'd just been caught- given one of the best hand jobs of his _life_ \- had his holiday wrecked...

"North America is covered," the snowman said. Quieter, now. Subdued. "But Eurasia will be clear. You should go and catch up your time."

"One thing," Aster said, and looked up. "Your name."

"My...?"

"So I know who to track down if Easter's wrecked again."

The cloaked figure seemed to stare at him, and then gave a shallow bow. "Jack Frost, at your service."

Jack Frost. Aster stood up, and brushed himself off.

When he looked back again, Jack Frost was gone, vanished into the slowly dying blizzard as if he'd never been there.

E. Aster Bunnymund met Jack Frost once, and _only_ once.

He tries to feel relieved about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The sequel, Shadows Wake, will be posted as soon as I get a chapter written. It will cover the movie events- though of course, not quite the way the movie portrayed them. Crazy!Jack isn't a neutral party, after all.
> 
> For music you might like to listen to, and that I used as insperation while writing this fic, please take a look at the following:  
> Sarah McLachlan - Fallen  
> Lacuna Coil - Heaven's a Lie  
> Seether - Broken  
> Stone Sour - Bother


End file.
